Cholera Forces Haiti to Face Sewage Dilemma

The cholera crisis is forcing Haitian authorities to address an unpleasant and now life-threatening problem – untreated feces.

WATER: Early Rains Rekindle Interest in Rainwater Harvesting

In Thembekie Gwebu’s yard under the roof leaves stands a curious giant green plastic container with a plastic pipe connected to the gutter. She has been asked a number of times by curious visitors and passers-by what the contraption is, and she happily explains.

WATER: Miracle Man Eases Village’s Water Woes

Hermes Chimombo, a welder in his 50s, is a revered man in the impoverished Naotcha Township. Armed with rudimentary tools and a passion to ease people’s suffering, he has tapped a spring in the mountain above the slum to provide water for its 25,000 residents.

Pulling Together To Protect Zambia’s Kafue Flats

Dams, sugarcane plantations and rapidly growing population threatened the health of the Kafue Flats, a richly diverse wetlands in southern Zambia. But growing recognition of more sustainable use of its water and fertile soil are securing the health of the ecosystem.

Water Out of Thin Air for South African School

It takes a moment to understand what the six-metre high net has been set up to capture: water. The Tshiavha Primary School's water supply is pulled out of the fog that rises over this mountainous part of South Africa's Limpopo Province.

NAMIBIA: Run-of-the River Power Stations Planned for Lower Orange River

Namibia's national power utility says plans are moving ahead to construct a series of hydro-electric power stations along the Lower Orange River.

SOUTHERN AFRICA: Testing the Waters Ahead of Closer Collaboration

You would expect to find children in the Vaal River outside Parys on a hot afternoon. But 28 of them, on the Gauteng side of the river, are not swimming; they are doing research for ORASECOM.

HAITI: Cholera Outbreak Highlights Clean Water Crisis

The man arrived from Arcahaie, near St. Marc in central Haiti where a cholera outbreak exploded last week, initially overwhelming the local medical grid. It was an hour's journey to a hospital in Lafiteau, near the capital, where he died on Sunday.

Hard to Put a Price-tag on Healthy Rivers

Damming a river may bring electric power, but it often comes at the price of high-quality food fisheries, experts say. When dams are proposed for power, flood control or irrigation, the often devastating impacts on fisheries in rivers and lakes are ignored or discounted.

Malawi Herbalist Joins Fight Against Deforestation

Decades of shifting cultivation by rural farmers have threatened forests in the district of Karonga in northern Malawi. The loss of forest cover has also threatened the livelihood of Benjamin Kalowekamo, a herbalist who depends on local plants to mix his healing concoctions.

SOUTHERN AFRICA: Strengthen Cooperation to Secure Power

Southern African nations need to agree on a common operational system to manage energy in the region, environmental experts advise. If they don’t, the region could experience power shortages and resulting economic deficits.

Okavango’s Resurgent Floods Test Disaster Management

Despite early warnings about higher-than-usual flooding of the Okavango Delta in 2010, homes, fields, latrines and boreholes in the delta were flooded.

Lesotho Could Beat Drought With Irrigation

Bonang Charles's fields are a richly green rarity in October's parched landscapes along the Phutiatsana River. It's a vivid demonstration of the limited reach of irrigation to Lesotho's small-holder farmers.

Water, Sanitation Gain Traction as Basic Human Rights

When the 47-member Human Rights Council (HRC) affirmed last week that the right to water and sanitation was a basic human right, the consensus resolution was described as a "historic first" for the U.N.’s premier human rights body based in Geneva.

WATER-ZAMBIA: Vanished Funds Mean Fields Stay Dry

The M’cheleka Irrigation Scheme was meant to answer water and food security challenges in the Chadiza district of Zambia's Eastern Province. But ten years after the completion of the dam wall, only six families are benefiting from the water.

Water Strategy Key to Cities of the Future

A diverse group of more than 4,500 professionals from the water industry gathered here to send a resounding message: a sharp break from past practices of water distribution and wastewater management is needed to cope with the burgeoning population growth in cities and impending water scarcity.

Summit Failure on Water, Sanitation Would Be Recipe for Disaster

A weeklong international conference here has transmitted a strong political message to next week's U.N. summit meeting of world leaders: what good is the fight against poverty, hunger, maternal mortality and child deaths if water and sanitation are not given the high priority they deserve?

Irrigation Transforms Lives in Southern Zimbabwe

More than a million people will need food aid in Zimbabwe this year. As the government looks to boost agriculture production, one rural community is leading the way by using irrigation schemes to improve food security and income.

ZIMBABWE: Big Market, Bigger Challenges for Matabeleland Farmers

Most fruits and vegetables sold in Bulawayo are imported from South Africa, because farms immediately around Zimbabwe's second city cannot meet demand. Locals are paying high prices as a result.

Africa’s Water Security Hinges on Better Infrastructure

As Africa continues its seemingly endless struggle for water security, why is the beleaguered continent lagging behind Asia and Latin America - despite commitments and declarations by political leaders?

Harvesting Water to Save Crops and Lives

Peter Kivuti, a 51-year-old farmer from Eastern Kenya, never relied on meteorological weather predictions all his life - until three years ago. It was then that rainfall in the region become less predictable.