SOUTHERN AFRICA: Escape Route From Thirst Passes Through Zaire

By Moyiga Nduru Reprint | | Print |

Moyiga Nduru

NYANGA, ZIMBABWE, Nov 25 1995 (IPS) - The rivers and dams that provide water to towns, villages and farmlands in Southern Africa are slowly drying up.

Even the mighty Zambezi is just a shadow of its former self. The Kariba Dam which it feeds and which supplies Zimbabwe and Zambia with electricity is just centimetres above the lowest point at which its generators can operate.

Drought has battered the region over the past decade and, if it continues at the same rate, there will be little water to be found throughout Southern Africa in three decades’ time, hydraulic engineers say.

A no-hope situation? Not quite. There could be a solution, engineers say: Zaire.

Zaire has most of Central Africa’s rain forests and a quarter of Africa’s water resources, including the River Zaire, 4,700 km long, running through areas with heavy rainfall — average annual precipitation in some zones is as high as 2,200 mm.

According to Alan Conley of the Department of Water Resources and Forestry in South Africa, the River Zaire dwarfs all waterways south of it. “The capacity is over 10 times that of the Zambezi and of the order of 100 times that of the Orange or Okavango,” he says.

Besides, the potential of the Inga hydroelectric dam, powered by the Zaire, is estimated at at least 45000 megawatts (mw) — more than sufficient to meet the present electricity demand of the whole of southern Africa.

One idea discussed at a Nov. 16-17 meeting on Intergrated Development and Regional Water Resources, held here and organised by the Harare-based Southern African Foundation for Economic Research (SAFER), was that of building a 140-km pipeline to pump water from Zaire into River Zambezi.

The largest river south of the Zaire, it rises in eastern Angola, flows south through Zambia and then flows generally eastwards, forming the borders between Zambia and Namibia, and Zambia and Zimbabwe, before crossing Mozambique to the Indian Ocean.

The Zambezi River Trust of Zimbabwe has already commissioned a Swedish consultant to explore the feasibility of the Zaire-Zambezi pipeline.

“I think what we need is the political will to get the project rolling,” says Victor Kasimona, a leading water engineer in Zambia.

SOUTHERN AFRICA: Escape Route From Thirst Passes Through Zaire

By Moyiga Nduru Reprint | | Print |

Moyiga Nduru

NYANGA, ZIMBABWE, Nov 25 1995 (IPS) - The rivers and dams that provide water to towns, villages and farmlands in Southern Africa are slowly drying up.
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