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Monday, July 27, 2026
News and Views from the Global South
The Southern Africa Water Wire
SWAZILAND: Heavy Rains Welcome in the Mountain Kingdom
There's nothing quite like the enthusiasm that rises from the earth when rains come at last to a drought-stricken region. While heavy rains have caused extensive flooding across Southern Africa, with fears of worse to come, in at least one corner of the region the community is gazing with joy at an overflowing dam.
ZAMBIA: Unsolved Riddle of Sustaining Water Utilities
Sebastian Chilekwa’s job title at the Luapula Water and Sewerage Company is "Managing Director of Dilemma". Or it should be.
Floodwaters Rising Across Southern Africa
As South Africa declares a national disaster due to flooding, other countries in the region hold their breath while water levels continue to rise.
Mozambique Prepares for Worst Floods in 10 Years
Flood alert levels are on orange in parts of Mozambique as disaster management services mobilise to respond to flooding potentially as bad as the catastrophe in 2000.
Malawi Missing Its Local Government
An hour and fifteen minutes each day: Melina Kalunga has plenty of time to measure how long it takes to resolve a legal battle over Malawi's Electoral Commission.
DR CONGO: Promise of Potable Water for Kikwit
When the ground is broken for the Kakobola dam, engineers just might be able to hear the jubilation in the city of Kikwit, 200 kilometres away. The city's million residents are desperate to improve their water supply.
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.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-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.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.« Previous Page — Next Page »
The Southern Africa Water Wire provides in-depth coverage of a diverse range of water-related issues in Africa, linking water to economic development, social well-being and environmental protection. Local journalists from across the continent explore the challenges, failures and successes of managing this vital resource.
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