By: Nour El-hoda Fouad
Experts predict that the number African states facing water crisis will increase from 14 to 25 by 2025.
Africa is listed as the second continent suffering from drought in spite of its heavy water resources, including rain of about 738 mm annually, 63 river basins and 677 lakes. The continent is also home to some of the world’s most important rivers like the Nile River, Congo, and its groundwater is 15% in total.
"Sustainable water development projects are inevitable and crucial," said Dr. Azza Abdullah, a professor of geography at Benha University. "This requires a long-term strategic plan that will bring the continent's countries together to secure the basic water needs in the future and to keep the resources that are wasted by the severe evaporation of up to 80 percent. In addition to the development of banks and sewage networks that drain a lot.”
This came during the symposium entitled "Prospects for Sustainable Development in Egypt and Africa" organized by the Committee of Geography at the Supreme Council of Culture held at the Faculty of Arts, Cairo University.
Dr. Attia El-Tantawy, professor of natural geography at the Faculty of African Studies, pinpointed to the issue of food security in the Sahel region, one of the largest region suffering from food deficit- due to its location within dry lands and its density fluctuates.
“More than 793 million people in the world are not able to secure enough food regularly,” added El-Tantawy. “And in 2013, FAO confirmed that at least 13 million people in the Sahel suffered food insecurity; more than 1.4 million children are at risk of extreme malnutrition.”
In the same context, Dr. Magda Amer, head of the Department of Geography, Faculty of Higher African Studies, considered the exploding population a major cause of the deficit of food resources and lack of health services and high rates of poverty.
“The crisis requires a unified African political decision to work at the official and popular levels and to allocate the necessary equipment to eradicate illiteracy in Africa and reduce population growth rates,” stressed Amer.
Africa is the world’s second largest continent in terms of area, yet its 7.62 billion population did not exceed 16.8% of the world population in mid-2018.
Actually, the black continent’s population increased by about 282 million totalizing to 1.28 billions in 1960, which is estimated at 9% of the world's total population.
In other words, Africa's population doubled to more than 4.5 times in-between 1960 and 2018.
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