Over the years Zanzibar’s sea levels have risen to erode beaches and contaminate some of the island’s fresh water supply. Credit: Giandomenico Pozzi/CC by 2.0

Khadija Komboani’s nearest well is filled with salt water thanks to the rising sea around Tanzania’s Indian Ocean island of Zanzibar.

And until recently, the 36-year-old mother of 12 from Nungwi village in Unguja on the northernmost part of Zanzibar, spent most of her day walking to her nearest fresh water supply to collect safe drinking water.

“The water is very salty so it can’t be used for anything. You will use a lot of soap and water if you use it for washing clothes or dishes. Another difficulty is that you can’t use it for cooking or drinking. That is why we had to walk for long distances to collect water from fresh water wells,” Komboani tells IPS.

According to Zanzibar’s Department of Environment, rising sea levels have resulted in seawater mixing with fresh water supplies and contaminating the wells here. Zanzibar does not have rivers and the main source of water remains groundwater, which depends on the currently erratic rainfall. 

But thankfully, for Komboani, the experience of spending hours collecting water is now just a memory, since the implementation of a project to supply clean and safe water to households in her village.

In October 2012, the Africa Adaptation Programme (AAP) of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) constructed an eight-km pipeline from Kilimani village, in the interior, to Nungwi village, which lies along the coast. A huge water tank near Kilimani village sustains the water supply.

The AAP, a climate change programme implemented in 21 African countries, aims to assist Tanzania with the development of climate-smart policies and climate change adaptation projects.

Meanwhile, the 15,000 people from Nungwi village now have access to water 24 hours a day, which can be sourced from taps and reservoir tanks.

Komboani says that since the water project was introduced, she now has more time to concentrate on her business of selling snacks. She says she earns approximately five dollars a day from this.

“I don’t have to worry about waking up early to collect water anymore. I use the time to engage in other productive activities, such as selling snacks and working in my vegetable garden.

“My husband used to accuse me of being unfaithful when I would return home late from the well. I am now glad that we have peace in our home,” she says.

Not only has it brought peace to Komboani’s home, but the easy access to drinking water has saved many women and girls from unwanted marriages.

Zanzibar’s North A district commissioner, the equivalent of a governor, Tatu Mganga, says her office had to intervene several times when they heard about women being married off so they could be used to fetch water for their new husbands.

“Such incidents were common and we had to intervene and rescue girls when we heard these stories,” Mganga tells IPS.

She says that while everyone in Nungwi village was affected by the shortage, women and children suffered the most because they were responsible for fetching water for their families.

Mganga says that the lives of the people from Nungwi village and its surrounding areas have now changed for the better.

“Almost all the people living in the area now have access to clean and safe water. Families can now wash their hands and clothes, and bathe properly. Subsequently, there has been improved sanitation,” says Mganga.

UNDP country director for Tanzania, Philippe Poinsot, tells IPS that the AAP is focused on improving the supply of clean and safe water to households through pilot projects.

“Women and children were walking for too long to fetch water from dirty surface water points (and consumption of this water) had accelerated ill health,” Philippe says. The rampant use of unclean water in Nungwi village led to an increase in pneumonia and skin diseases. Local health authorities say there has since been a decrease in these cases.

Ally Jabir Haiza, Zanzibar’s district health officer, tells IPS that the water from shallow wells along the island’s coast was tested and found to be excessively salty. This, he explains, impacted on healthcare in the area. In Unguja, a newly built maternity ward could not be used because of the shortage of clean water.

“Students too could not concentrate on their studies because they were frequently worried about fetching water when they returned home. And they were already tired when they commenced their lessons in the morning (from going to fetch water before school).

“Sometimes new mothers from Nungwi, who were experiencing postpartum stress, were forced to walk down the three-km road to fetch water from the nearest fresh water well,” says Hiza.

But now that fresh water is being piped in, the residents of Nungwi village have access to more water – some 20 litres per day compared to the five litres a day they collected from their nearest fresh water wells.

According to Sheha Mjanja, director of environment in Zanzibar’s Vice President’s Office, several surveys conducted over the past 10 years have confirmed that the island is vulnerable to the impact of climate change, particularly rising sea levels and beach erosion.

“The impact of climate change in Nungwi village is one of the biggest challenges at the moment. The water is quickly eating into the land and we fear the situation could worsen,” Mjanja tells IPS.

Mjanja adds that rising sea levels could cause a serious water shortage on the island as salt water is increasingly seeping into the ground water supply.

He says that the government is currently preparing a strategy paper to address the impact of climate change here and hopes to involve the private sector in implementing solutions.

Meanwhile, the elders here are witness to the impact climate change has had on this island. One community elder, 58-year-old Masoud Haji, tells IPS that over the years sea levels have risen about 80 metres.

“In December, we didn’t see any rains, compared to when I was young. The ocean was far from the shore, but it has now risen … the villages used to be far from the shore, but now everyone lives close to the ocean,” Haji says.

As Zimbabwe struggles with water supply because of a shortage of water treatment chemicals, businesses have sprung up all over the country with people illegally selling water obtained from, sometimes, unsafe sources. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo/IPS

For 61-year-old Sarah Chikwanha from water-starved Chitungwiza, a town about 25 kilometres outside Harare, Zimbabwe, there is no choice. She must buy her water from illegal water traders, whose businesses have sprung up across the country.

“We only have water once weekly in Chitungwiza, and so I have no choice but to buy from dealers at 95 dollars for a 2,500-litre tank,” Chikwanha told IPS.

These new, illegal businesses are the result of the dire need for water, as rationing in towns and cities continues because of shortages of water treatment chemicals in this southern African nation.

Harare’s mayor, Muchadeyi Masunda, has gone on record saying that the council needs three million dollars a month for water treatment chemicals, a challenge compounded by the city’s obligation to supply water to neighbouring towns like Chitungwiza, Norton, and Ruwa.

Statistics from the Harare Residents Trust (HRT), an advocacy group, indicate that only 192,000 households in Harare are connected to the water system, while the rest depend on boreholes or rainwater.

Harare needs 1,300 megalitres of water daily, but the current supply ranges from 600 to 700 megalitres.

Councillors from Chitungwiza, where Chikwanha lives, told IPS that the council there failed to pay for water supplied by Harare’s Lake Chivero, thus intensifying water rationing in a town of nearly two million people. People have now turned to wells, streams and inadequate boreholes, as well as illegal traders, for their water.

“Water shortages have been going on for over a decade now, dating back to the beginning of Zimbabwe’s economic crisis around 2000, when revenue collection dwindled after commercial farmers who used to contribute faithfully to paying water bills were evicted from their farms,” a top council official in Harare told IPS on condition of anonymity.

Panganayi Charumbira, a councillor from Harare’s Budiriro low-income suburb, told IPS that both Zimbabwe’s urban and rural areas were affected. “The water crisis is getting worse in towns, but it’s even worse in the countryside,” Charumbira said.

But the water traders say that despite the worsening water woes, they find it hard for their operations to be regularised. “We sell water illegally here because council authorities are not willing to licence us, accusing us of trading in contaminated water,” Delisono Jamela, a water trader in Harare who runs an unregistered water-selling company called Jame-Waters, told IPS.

Donemore Siwela, who runs Sycamore-Oasis, another unregistered water-selling company, acknowledged that he pilfers tap water from strategic places that are not experiencing water rationing.

“My company is well connected to hospitals and politically-influential authorities here housed at government buildings, from which I draw water. Nothing happens to me even if I’m caught,” Siwela told IPS.

But according to Zimbabwe’s Water Bill of 1998, a licence to use water is issued by a responsible local authority, to which a prospective user must apply. The Standards Association of Zimbabwe (SAZ) in November 2012 intensified the monitoring of water-selling companies amid revelations that other water dealers were not meeting required standards, according to SAZ director general Eve Gadzikwa.

“We engaged the regulator, who in this case is the Food Standards Advisory Board (FSAB), for updates on water quality,” Gadzikwa told IPS. FSAB is the regulatory board tasked with making random checks on the quality and safety of water for domestic and commercial use in Zimbabwe.

Harare City Council spokesperson Lesley Gwindi accused water traders of jeopardising public health. “Water traders are fuelling the spread of waterborne diseases by selling untreated water, and as council, we are doing everything within our capacity to ensure that everyone gets a fair share of clean water,” Gwindi told IPS.

However, Dr. Portia Manangazira, director of the Ministry of Health and Child Welfare’s Department of Epidemiology and Disease Control, told IPS that cases of waterborne diseases were isolated nationwide.

“Cases of waterborne diseases like typhoid and diarrhoea are, for now, isolated here,” Manangazira said. But more than 4,200 Zimbabweans succumbed to cholera from August 2008 to mid 2009 as contaminated water supplies spread the disease amid the country’s failing health care systems.

Some dealers told IPS that they sourced water from local lakes like Lake Chivero, and they claimed they purified it on their own before selling it to water-starved residents.

“We draw water to sell straight from Lake Chivero, normally at night because we are deemed water poachers by council cops here,” a water dealer said.

Harare’s urbanites like 46-year-old Tracey Mangena, a single mother of five, find the water and tanks purchased from dealers unaffordable. “The tanks cost 750 dollars each before filling them with 2,500 litres of water at 95 dollars, and for me, I can’t afford it as I’m jobless,” she told IPS.

Many other urban dwellers here, dogged by the water crisis, have drilled their own boreholes. And others, like 56-year-old widow Miriam Saungweme from Harare’s Mufakose low-income suburb, have dug unprotected wells. “Poor people like me have had no choice in the face of mounting water woes except to dig wells from which to draw water,” she told IPS.

Meanwhile, the Rooftop Rainwater Harvest, a project established in 2009 by International Relief and Development, a non-governmental organisation, in partnership with the United States Agency for International Development to assist underprivileged people with clean and safe water, has been a source of relief to many during the rainy seasons.

“We enjoy a temporary reprieve from water woes with the help of this rooftop water-harvesting initiative, but with the rainy season over, several of us here have since fallen back to a water crisis, and we are scavenging for the precious liquid from unprotected sources or buying from dealers at four dollars per 20-litre container,” 34-year-old Agnes Mhasi from Harare told IPS.

Cape Town water activist Nokuzola Bulana says water management devices are not the way to solve water waste and debt for the poor. Credit: Brendon Bosworth/IPS

Nokuzola Bulana has a problem with leaks. The water that drips from the pipes of the toilet outside her home in Khayelitsha, a large semi-informal township on the fringes of Cape Town, South Africa goes to waste and drives up her water bill.

Bulana, a water activist, says she fixed the leaks in January but water on the floor at the base of the toilet, which is inside a stall painted with pink, yellow and purple stripes, and pooled on the ground outside the stall, shows that seepages persist.

In March, her eight-person home used over seven times the amount of water the city of Cape Town gives indigent households for free in a month. Bulana blames the leaks for this.

“We don’t mind to pay for the water we drink or cook with but now the water goes down the drain,” Bulana tells IPS when interviewed at her home. “I love the environment. I want to look after the water.”

Bulana is one of many South Africans whose wasted water contributes to the country’s yearly loss of more than a third of its water – a shortfall driven chiefly by leaks, according to a 2012 report from the South African Water Research Commission. These losses cost municipalities more than 731 million dollars annually and drive poor citizens into debt they often cannot afford to pay.

South Africa is also the 30^th driest country in the world and could hit water shortages as early as 2025. It can scarcely afford to squander this resource.

Water saving devices denounced

At about 4 pm on a Saturday afternoon, there was no water coming from the tap outside 60-year-old Lusi Daniso’s house in Khayelitsha. This is a regular occurrence, Daniso tells IPS.

She claims she gets just 20 litres of water daily – not enough for the eight people living in her home – and has to ask her neighbours for water.

Daniso’s home is one of about 84,000 in Cape Town where the city has installed water management devices (WMDs). Housed in oval boxes with blue lids, the devices are set to provide indigent residents (those with a total monthly household income of 313 dollars or less, or a property value of 20,890 dollars or under) with 10.5 kilolitres of free water per month. This allotment is broken into a 350-litre daily allowance.

The devices cut water supply once the daily limit is reached, and turn it back on the next day.

The WMDs play a key role in the city’s water management strategy and are touted as a way to deal with the 9.2 million dollars indigent households owe the city. If indigent residents choose to have a device installed, the city repairs leaks, installs the device, and cancels their outstanding water debt.

But as IPS reported previously community leaders and civil society organisations have denounced the WMDs.

The devices are going into households with low quality plumbing infrastructure, Taryn Pereira, a researcher with the non-profit Environmental Monitoring Group, based in Cape Town, tells IPS. Leaks from taps, cisterns and underground pipes result in residents not getting their daily 350 litres, she says.

Technicians fix leaks when installing the devices but repairs often don’t last and residents in poor communities don’t have the money to pay for plumbers, says Pereira.

Pereira’s research indicates that residents are not properly consulted about the devices, cut-offs due to leaks and technical problems are common, and people struggle to get help from the city when meters malfunction.

“In this city, this supposedly world-class city, many of our fellow citizens, even once they manage to get a house that they’ve been waiting a long time for on a housing list, are actually, in terms of water, worse off then when they lived in shacks,” she says.

A fragile compromise

Because of the issues with water management devices, Bulana and other residents in Makhaza, a subsection of Khayelitsha, met with city officials last year and asked for a six-month pilot programme in the subsection whereby the city will fix leaks and freeze residents’ debt without installing the devices.

“We can manage our water because we are the ones using the water,” says Bulana.

Over the past months, the city has been assessing leaks and doing education and awareness in Makhaza in preparation for fixing leaks, councillor Ernest Sonnenberg, the city’s mayoral committee member for utility services, tells IPS in an emailed response.

But that does not mean devices are off the table.

The city will review all the houses affected by the project and analyse their water use, Sonnenberg says. “If residents are unable to decrease their usage as discussed in the meeting the city will review their individual account and install a WMD if necessary.”

With water usage for agriculture surpassing sustainable levels, farmers must embrace crop varieties which require little irrigation. Credit: Miriam Gathigah/IPS

Amid warnings that Kenya’s agricultural water use is surpassing sustainable levels and adversely affecting food security, biodiversity researchers say that agrobiodiversity should be considered as a vital tool to combat this.

“In order to feed the nation, the country must explore agrobiodiversity, specifically (the growing of) vegetables and fruits, which have been neglected in favour of maize,” Mary Abukutsa-Onyango, a professor of horticulture at the Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology, told IPS.

As climate change continues to wreak havoc on rainfall patterns, resulting in intermittent prolonged dry spells across this East African nation, vegetables present the best alternative to maize because they do not require large amounts of water.

The 2012/2013 Kenya country brief by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations stated that the “October to December ‘short-rains’ season performed poorly … (and) a series of dry spells also caused poor germination … leading to wilting and drying out of crops.”

According to the United States Agency for International Development Kenya, this nation is “classified among the most water scarce countries in the world.” And government statistics indicate that 13 million Kenyans lack access to improved water supply.

“In Kenya, and by extension Africa, desertification and water scarcity are a major threat to agriculture and to pastoralist communities. Strategies such as irrigation, water harvesting and conservation, and tree planting must be revamped,” Nashon Tado, of the Norwegian Refugee Council’s Horn of Africa and Yemen office, told IPS.

A food security report by the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute said that “official estimates indicate over 10 million people are food insecure with majority of them living on food relief.”

The Ministry of Agriculture says that at least 70 percent of Kenya’s agricultural production comes from smallholder farmers who farm on two to five acres of land. Of Kenya’s 42 million people, eight million households are involved in agriculture, with five million depending directly on it for their livelihoods.

But Kenya’s Food Security Outlook 2013, released on May 15 by the U.N. World Food Programme, confirmed that embracing other crops besides maize was improving food security here.

“Improved availability of green vegetables, green maize and legumes from early June through July is expected to diversify diets and sustain food consumption,” the report stated.

It makes sense that Kenyans should explore biodiversity. Kenya has ratified the Convention on Biological Diversity, the globally negotiated agreement committed to sustainable use of biodiversity. Consequently, agrobiodiversity is being touted as a solution to the biting water stresses facing Kenya.

“This year’s International Biodiversity Day’s theme is Water and Biodiversity and is very significant as the country tries to find innovative techniques and strategies to maximise water usage,” Naomi Chepkorir, an agricultural extension officer at the Ministry of Agriculture, in Kenya’s bread basket, Rift Valley province, told IPS.

Indigenous vegetables and fruits are easy to manage, can withstand high and unpredictable temperatures, and are known to have high nutritional value and contain high concentrates of micronutrients, including iron.

“Take the spider plant and African nightshade, which are found in parts of Western and Nyanza provinces, as well as across East Africa. They are known to be nutritious, medicinal and are very rich in iron, calcium, magnesium, anti-oxidants and fibre,” Abukutsa-Onyango said.

The spider plant is known to have high levels of beta-carotene, calcium, protein, magnesium, iron and vitamin C. The plant is also high in antioxidants, which may help prevent diseases like diabetes, cancer and heart disease.

Chepkorir said that generally vegetables have a shorter life cycle compared to other crops. They grow in a few weeks and require very little irrigation, hence allowing smallholder farmers to reap the benefits of their harvest earlier than they would if they planted a crop like maize – which takes up to three to four months to mature.

Abukutsa-Onyango agreed, adding that indigenous vegetables are able to adapt to climate change because they mature faster. She gave the example of the spider plant and the variety of amaranth that is indigenous to Africa, which can be harvested within three weeks of planting. She added that the slenderleaf ice plant could also withstand water deficit conditions.

Abukutsa-Onyango added that growing a diversity of indigenous vegetables and fruits “would not only address food security, but also nutrition and health security.

“People should eat a balanced diet, and currently Kenyans are consuming inadequate amounts of vegetables and fruits leading to an upsurge of diet-related diseases,” she said.

Good nutrition and healthy diets are important aspects in meeting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The eight ambitious goals, adopted by all U.N. member states in 2000, aim to curb poverty, disease and gender inequality.

According to the MDG Report 2010 “nutrition has long been seriously overlooked and underemphasised by donors and developing countries, despite good nutrition being a key enabler to meet almost every MDG.”

Yvonne Onyango, a nutritionist in Nairobi, explained: “If a child is not well fed in its first 1,000 days, its growth is affected and the damage is irreversible. The child will never rise to the potential that other children who are well nourished do.”

Government statistics show that about 35 percent of Kenyan children suffer from malnutrition, including iron deficiency anaemia.

But water is a significant aspect of food security and management of this resource requires cooperation from many levels, according to Phillip Muthee, from Kenya’s Private Sector Alliance (KEPSA).

KEPSA is the umbrella body of organised business associations, ranging from big to small enterprises in the country.

“When water is managed and shared cooperatively, it supports livelihoods, food security and the economy,” Muthee told IPS.

Muthee feared that Kenya’s new devolved system of government could lead to potential new conflicts around the provision of and access to water. Kenya is now implementing the new system, which allows for decisions affecting Kenya’s 47 counties to be taken at grassroots, as opposed to national, level.

“For instance, the government has already committed to make about one million hectares of land irrigable. But conflict may arise between the national and county governments regarding whose responsibility it is to ensure that this is done,” Muthee said.

He worried that if this happened “water will not reach the people at the grassroots level who need it, not just to feed themselves, but to feed the nation.”

Madam Siankusulu complains of poor harvests

Fifty seven thousand people were displaced on the Zambian and Zimbabwean sides of the Zambezi River to make way for the construction of the Kariba hydroelectric dam.

Almost six decade later, they are still to be compensated for being moved from their homes.

Nguwo village committee chairperson Ibrahim Kachinga on the shores of Lake Malawi. And for the past five years the village committee has been going to local gatherings to educate residents about the need to protect the lake. Credit: Mabvuto Banda/IPS

Lloyd Phiri, a fisherman from Senga Bay on Lake Malawi’s shores in Malawi’s central region, knows that the lake’s water levels are dropping. He can see it in his catch, which has shrunk by more than 80 percent in recent years.

Years ago, it was the norm to catch about 5,000 fish a day, Phiri says. But now, if he is lucky, he brings in one-fifth of that. And if he is not, he catches a mere 300 fish a day.

“My fish catch has gone down in recent years and this has affected my earnings. I now have problems paying school fees for my children,” Phiri tells IPS.

The rapid drop in Lake Malawi’s water levels, driven by population growth, climate change and deforestation, is threatening its floral and fauna species with extinction, says Malawi’s Ministry of Environment and Climate Change Management. And included among the wildlife threatened are the fish that Phiri depends on for a livelihood.

“Over the last three decades some water balance models have been done on the lake and have shown that the water levels have dropped from 477 metres above sea level in the 1980s to around 474.88 metres currently,” Yanira Mtupanyama, principal secretary in the ministry, tells IPS of the 29,600-square-kilometre lake that straddles the borders of Malawi, Mozambique and Tanzania.

“It’s a big deal because studies are showing that the water levels in the lake will keep on dropping in coming years because there are signs that show (that there will be) less rainfall and increased evaporation,” she says.

An estimated 1,000 different fish species rely on the fresh waters of Africa’s third-largest lake for their survival, which also provides 60 percent of this southern African nation’s protein requirement.

The mbuna cichlids species and the famous tilapia fish, locally known as chambo, are facing extinction. Chambo is Malawi’s most popular fish.

The country’s Department of Fisheries says that fish stocks in the lake have dwindled by 90 percent over the last 20 years. It is a huge concern as, according to authorities, about 1.5 million Malawians depend on the lake for food, transportation and other daily needs.

And of even greater concern are the recent Malawian government reports that say the water mass may hold rich oil and gas reserves. Environmentalist Raphael Mweneguwe fears that if oil and gas mining starts on the lake, it can lead to further biodiversity losses.

“The fish stocks have declined in the last two decades from about 30,000 metric tonnes per year to 2,000 per year because of a drop in water levels, overfishing and rapid population growth. But this may get worse if oil is discovered on the lake,” Mwenenguwe tells IPS.

Williman Chadza, executive director of the Centre for Environmental Policy and Advocacy, a local NGO that promotes activism on environmental issues, shares Mwenenguwe’s fears.

“Oil is a resource of paramount importance to a country like Malawi, which is seeking revenue alternatives for its socio-economic development. But its discovery may deepen the country’s biodiversity loss and impact badly on water sources,” Chadza tells IPS.

Mining also poses a threat to the lake. A uranium mine in Karonga, a town situated near Lake Malawi in the north of the country, is one example. The mine, owned and operated by Australian mining giant Paladin (Africa) for the past four years, is regarded as a pollution threat.

“Uranium is a highly radioactive material and therefore there are still threats of polluting the freshwater in Lake Malawi,” Udule Mwakasungura, a human rights activist, tells IPS.

The need to arrest the loss of biodiversity is particularly important in Malawi where people depend on biological resources to a greater extent than other parts of the world.

The 18,000 families of Nguwo fishing village in Senga Bay are an example of this dependency.

“We know that the fish stock has depleted because of unsustainable fishing practices and non-compliance with fishing regulations … we also know that cutting trees unsustainably is ultimately affecting the quality of the water we drink,” says village headman Radson Mdalamkwanda.

Mdalamkwanda tells IPS that fishermen in the village have been working together with local authorities in the district to address the threats and challenges facing the conservation of Lake Malawi. He says that anyone not following the rules or by-laws is banned from fishing on the lake during October and November, when the fish spawn.

And for the past five years the village development committee has been going to local gatherings to educate residents about the by-laws and about the need to protect the lake.

“Apart from protecting the fish, we also want to safeguard the water so that it’s safe for drinking. We do that by creating awareness at gatherings like weddings and funerals,” the chair of the village committee, Ibrahim Kachinga, tells IPS.

Their efforts also complement the Malawi government’s attempts to address the threats challenges to conserving the flora and fauna of the lake.

“There has been a ban for the last few years on the use of high-yield fishing gear in lake Malawi between October and November when the fish are spawning,” Mtupanyama says.

Mtupanyama also says that in 2003 the government launched a 10-year strategic plan, which largely seeks to restore the lake’s fish stocks.

“So for the last 10 years we have been restocking the lake with fish by breeding juveniles outside the lake and then reintroducing them into the lake. We haven’t done badly,” she says.

Mtupanyama could not, however, say if this had significantly increased the lake’s fish stock.

Regardless of what may come of this restocking project, the Nguwo village committee understands that the future of the lake is important. So they are educating those who can do something about it – the village’s future generations.

Kachinga says: “With the help of government, we are also encouraging teachers in nursery and primary schools to teach our children about how to protect the lake.”

Villagers in Zimbabwe’s Mwenezi district have not had access to running water for more than a decade after more than half of the boreholes in the broke down. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo/IPS

For the last 13 years, Trynos Mbweku, the headman of Mwenezi district in southeastern Zimbabwe, has had to use a cart to fetch water from the only remaining borehole in his area, which lies some 10 kilometres from his home.

For villagers in this district, which is about 160 km southwest of Masvingo, the capital of Masvingo Province, the water crisis seems to have no end in sight.

“We have been reduced to becoming water scavengers owing to several dysfunctional boreholes that broke down over 10 years ago,” Mbweku told IPS.

Officials from the Mwenezi Rural District Council, who requested anonymity, told IPS that out of a total of 46 boreholes in the district, 26 had broken down and had not been repaired for the last 13 years.

Locals blame the District Development Fund (DDF) and the Mwenezi Rural District Council, which are responsible for repairing and maintaining the boreholes.

But officials from the Mwenezi Rural District Council said that over 120,000 dollars was required for repairs, and that the DDF was underfunded and could not afford it.

Zimbabwe is still recovering from an economic crisis. Between 2003 and 2009, the country had one of the worst rates of hyperinflation in the world – year on year inflation was reported as 231 percent.

However, economists in this Southern African nation attribute the deepening water woes here to the forced departure of agricultural investors at the height of the country’s controversial and often violent land reform programme, which began in 2000. The programme was a government initiative that attempted to reclaim land from almost 4,500 white commercial farmers, and was carried out by disgruntled war veterans.

“The water crisis is Zimbabwe’s national problem. It worsened after the 2000 chaotic land reform programme, which saw a downturn in the country’s economy. It resulted in the country losing revenue to maintain community boreholes when productive commercial farmers were evicted from their farms,” economist Kingston Nyakurukwa told IPS.

With around 70 percent of Zimbabwe’s population living in rural areas, improving access to water, sanitation and hygiene is critical. Although the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development funded a 50-million-dollar rural water and sanitation hygiene programme in 2012, which aimed to benefit drought-prone areas, most of rural Zimbabwe has difficulty accessing safe drinking water.

“We are grappling with water shortages here because several community boreholes broke down and have been out of use for years now, owing to the country’s poor economy,” Dereck Siyaya, an agricultural officer based in Guruve, a rural district in Mashonaland Central Province, told IPS.

According to figures from a 2010 United Nations Children’s Fund report titled “Child-Sensitive Social Protection in Zimbabwe”, almost half the population lives below the poverty line of 1.25 dollars a day.

A top official from the Ministry of Water Resources Development and Management told IPS that about 60 percent of rural water pumps, out of a total of about 2,714, were broken.

An estimated 2.5 million of the country’s 12.5 million people do not have access to improved water sources. And officials from Zimbabwe’s National Statistical office told IPS that 56 percent of people did not have access to improved sanitation facilities.

“Failure to act on the water crisis in the country will see Zimbabwe fighting over the precious liquid … we must commit to a sustainable water sector,” Minister of Water Resources Development and Management Samuel Sipepa Nkomo said at a water summit on Mar. 20 in Bulawayo.

A senior government official from the Ministry of Education, Sports and Culture told IPS that rural school children were also affected as they invested considerable time in fetching water instead of attending classes.

“The water crisis in rural areas has resulted in school pupils spending much of their time fetching water for their teachers alongside ordinary villagers also hunting for the precious liquid,” the official said.

In 2009, Zimbabwe signed an agreement with the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, the World Wide Fund for Nature and the Institute of Water and Sanitation Development, Zimbabwe, to raise funds to supply clean water to the local population. But four years later, the agreement is yet to be implemented.

In order for Zimbabwe to reach the U.N. Millennium Development Goals to increase improved access to water sources, the country needs an investment of 400 million dollars per year, according to a 2010 U.N. Children’s Fund report. There are eight MDGs that were adopted by all U.N. member states in 2000 in order to curb poverty, disease and gender inequality.

But independent economist Hillary Jamela told IPS: “Constructing more dams for rural communities here would only help to further enfeeble the country’s already suffocating economy.”

Floods devastated the Mauritian capital, Port-Louis, on Mar. 30 but locals can expect the island to be affected by more floods, landslides and cyclones in the coming years because of climate change. Credit: Nasseem Ackbarally/IPS

Mauritius may be one of the best-prepared countries in the world when it comes to cyclones, but recent heavy rains and flooding due to climate change have brought the country’s readiness for coping with increased rainfall into question. 

Ecologist Keshwar Beeharry-Panray tells IPS that he expects the island to be affected by more floods, landslides and cyclones in the coming years because of climate change.

Beeharry-Panray, the director of a local NGO called Environment Protection and Conservation Organisation, says that the population has yet to understand the effects this will have on the country, and that even the government has not yet begun to prepare for increased rainfall on this Indian Ocean Island.

“We won’t get enough time to run for safety if we are not prepared,” he says.

Floods devastated the Mauritian capital, Port-Louis, on Mar. 30. Eleven people were killed, a hundred were wounded and thousands of dollars of damage was caused to buildings, roads, vehicles, shops and houses. Emergency services were overwhelmed and unable to provide effective response to the disaster.

Environmental engineer Vassen Kauppaymuthoo, a private consultant on environmental issues, concurs with Beeharry-Panray.

“People know what to do, what precautions to take when a cyclone approaches the island. The weather deteriorates and the meteorological warnings are issued. Yet, (Mauritius) lacks the same preparation with regard to floods and other natural calamities,” Kauppaymuthoo tells IPS.

According to the United Nations Development Programme, the island is vulnerable to “considerable economic loss, humanitarian stresses and environmental degradation as a result of climate change impacts. The direct climate change impacts likely to adversely affect Mauritius include an increase in the frequency of intense rainfall episodes, sea level rise of 18 – 59 centimetres by 2100 and an increase in intensity of tropical cyclones.”

During the Mar. 30 floods, in less than two hours 156 millimetres (mm) of rain fell in the capital, while it barely rained on other parts of the island. Torrents of water swept down from the mountains that surround Port-Louis and surged towards the city centre, sweeping up everything in their path.

Feroz Banjal, 61, was travelling back home in a bus when the vehicle got carried away in the flood.

From the bus, he saw a few people being swept away by the rains. He got out of the vehicle but was carried by the water for about 500 metres before a taxi driver standing on top of a footpath saved him.

“Thirty years or plus I travelled to the capital, I have never, ever seen so much water on the streets,” Banjal tells IPS.

Climate change is a reality for Mauritius. One official from the Mauritius Meteorological Services says that because of climate change, the rainfall pattern on the island has changed over the last few years.

“For the past two years, the island suffered from a severe drought, until early 2013 when it started raining a bit. In February and March, it rained a lot,” he tells IPS on the condition of anonymity.

For Nathalie Pompom, who lives near Canal Dayot, a river that carries the mountain rains to the sea, the heavy rainfall was a shock.

“Eighteen years I have lived here, I have never seen so much water entering my home. We lost everything. We fear for our future,” Pompom tells IPS.

Kauppaymuthoo says that on Feb. 13 floods also struck the island, and that it was unacceptable that less than two months later Mauritians had not been prepared for the Mar. 30 floods.

“We were warned that there was more to come, but this warning fell on deaf ears. Mauritius needs a management plan for natural calamities. A unit should be set up that is on the alert 24 hours a day, and that can take decisions fast to save lives and prevent material damage. As time passes, natural catastrophes will be on the increase because of climate change,” Kauppaymuthoo says.

As concrete and asphalt roads sprout everywhere to ease traffic congestion, and as building progresses, green spaces are being reduced at a fast pace. There are very few trees in the capital and less than two percent of forest cover on the island that could mitigate the effects of the torrential rain, Kauppaymuthoo says.

The country also does not have well-maintained drains to carry the rainwater to the sea; instead they are blocked by construction waste.

He adds that the construction of a ring road on the slopes of a mountain overlooking Port-Louis could also be part of the problem.

“Altering the natural course of water, modifying the structure of the natural drains that existed for millions of years to cut out roads in them poses a real threat to the environment,” Kauppaymuthoo says.

But Public Infrastructure Minister Anil Bachoo, grilled by local residents and the media, who accused him of irresponsibility because of the road development, says the floods were unforeseen.

“What happened in Port-Louis is entirely beyond human control. We are, of course, sad that this natural catastrophe has caused so much damage to our island. We had never dreamt that we could get 150 mm of rain at one go in a small region like Port-Louis,” he told the media on Apr. 4.

But Karim Jaufeerally, from the Institute of Environmental and Legal Studies, believes that the loss of life in the recent floods is due to sheer negligence by the government and local authorities.

“Even if Mauritius was prepared against natural calamities, there would have been the same problem in the capital because the drains did not function properly. The magnitude of the floods would have been less if the drains were clean,” he tells IPS.

Jaufeerally asks: “It’s easy to speak of preparedness for the next time, but what about the last time?”

The Beitbridge area in southern Zimbabwe was hit by serious flooding earlier this year. Those affected are still trying to get back on their feet.

Indigenous people who were displaced from the Zambezi Valley almost six decades ago for the construction of the Kariba Dam say they have not benefited from the development they made way for. Credit: Kristin Palitza/IPS

Indigenous people who were displaced from the Zambezi Valley almost six decades ago for the construction of the Kariba Dam say they have not benefited from the development they made way for.

The building of the Kariba hydroelectric dam was supposed to usher in a bright future for the people of Zambia and Zimbabwe who gave up their land for its construction.

Unfortunately, that future was for others and not the displaced and their descendants. Most of the villages to which some 57,000 people from both southern African nations were relocated are still not electrified.

Sixty-nine-year-old Samson Nyowani was 15 when he was moved from his home in Chipepu, where the Kariba Dam now lies, to Sitikwi village in Zambia’s Lusitu district some 60 kilometres away. Sitikwi village, Nyowani says, still has no electricity, and the soil is infertile.

“We do not have power here in Sitikwi, and the schools and clinic are not electrified, which is a sad situation after what we were made to undergo during the mass relocation,” he tells IPS.

“They, the (British) colonial government, had promised to provide electricity in our houses and we demanded that, despite our homesteads being grass thatched,” says Nyowani.

Though he was a teenager then, he narrates the story as if it happened this morning. The old man at least expects the current government to do something about the situation.

However, the current democratic government did not promise the same thing.

The acting district administrative officer at the Disaster Management and Mitigation Unit in Siyavonga, Hope Mpundu, says they are aware of the challenges facing the displaced communities. She adds that the government provides them with food aid and supports them with irrigation schemes.

“More should have been done for them as people who lived in this area before they were relocated, but they were pushed to those areas which are not good enough,” she tells IPS, conceding that the area they were moved to is drier than where they used to live.

Subsistence crop production is hard for the 3,000 people who settled in Sitikwi because the land is marginal. The area is also very hot which results in low harvests of maize and some indigenous vegetables.

“The yields are very low and only enough to feed our families from one harvest season to the next, which means that when the following year rains are minimal, people go hungry,” Nyowani says.

Frank Mudimba, a spokesperson for Basilwizi Trust, a non-governmental organisation lobbying for reparations to be paid to those who were displaced, says the Zambian government initiated the Gwembe Valley Development Programme, which targets communities affected by the construction of the dam.

He tells IPS that clinics, irrigation schemes, and dams were built and chiefs’ homes were electrified. However, he adds, funding for the programme stopped during the days of President Frederick Chiluba. “That stopped expansion, but whatever was established during the time the programme was running is still working, being run by the communities.” He adds that the Zimbabwean government undertook no such programme.

Like Nyowani, many other residents of Sitikwi are eager to see electricity in their village. The vice-headman in the area, Langson Mulungu, is not pleased that they have failed to reap the benefits of being relocated to make way for the massive hydropower plant.

“I am not happy that they didn’t give us electricity here, and instead electrified other neighbouring villages. Also, promises for irrigation schemes are not yet fulfilled,” Mulungu says.

Madam Siankusule was only eight when her parents were moved from Chipepu to Lusitu. She is told that in Chipepu the locals irrigated their crops and, coupled with fertile soils, harvests were good.

Now they have to contend with droughts. “I remember the drought in 1995 when the community suffered and food aid was brought in,” she tells IPS.

She usually sells chickens and at times tomatoes to make ends meet.

She agrees with Mulungu and Nyowani that their village should be electrified. Siankusule says preference should be given to schools because power is invaluable in those institutions.

Elizabeth Karonga, the public relations and communications manager for the Zambezi River Authority (ZRA), tells IPS that the then colonial government was more concerned about the welfare of wild animals than about the indigenous people. “Operation Noah” was launched to physically move animals from the area that was going to be flooded by the dam water.

She says the authorities did not provide for the 57,000 people displaced from both the Zambian and Zimbabwean sides. Save for some of the men who were engaged as labourers in the dam construction, the locals did not benefit from the project.

“Although ZRA was not in existence at the time, we have realised that the relocation was done haphazardly as no provisions were made to ensure that these people who were dependant on the water for survival adapted to a new livelihood,” says Karonga.

In 1997, ZRA established the Zambezi Valley Development Fund (ZVDF) as part of its corporate social responsibility policy.

“We felt obliged to do something for these people, and the fund, into which a percentage of the revenue that ZRA is paid from the Zambia Electricity Corporation and Zimbabwe Power Corporation, is an attempt to help those who were displaced,” Karonga says.

The projects include irrigation schemes, grinding mills and laboratories and classroom blocks at schools. However, the authorities at ZRA are not sure whether the beneficiaries of these projects are those who were displaced or their descendants.

In addition, Karonga says though they work with local government officials in both countries to recommend people who need assistance, the current projects benefit only those who live around the listed ZVDF areas. These are Lisutu, Nkandababbwe, Nkolongoza, in Zambia and Nyamhunga, Gatche Gatche and Mlibizi in Zimbabwe.

Karonga says ZRA will be investing in projects that have a long-term impact for the displaced communities, and is considering building a clinic.

Nyowani knows he cannot go back to where his forefathers were moved. But he wishes the authorities would do more to make their lives more comfortable. Electrifying his village would be a good start.

*Additional reporting by Ish Mafundikwa in Harare.