Scientists can make Africa rich

The World Water Day is being marked this week, and I am personally endorsing a report by African scientists that examines our continent’s water resources and calls for our political leaders to work more closely with Africa’s scientists to develop answers to the problems we face.

Water is essential for life. Safe, abundant water is vital to our ability to prosper and to fulfil our potential. Without it, we face a continual decline in well-being; we face poverty and hunger and increasing levels of conflict.

Across Africa, a third of us have no access to clean water, and almost two thirds no access to clean sanitation, causing widespread suffering from malaria, typhoid, dysentery to many other diseases.

Apart from this effect upon our health, the loss of productivity from water-related illnesses holds back our progress.

The population in many African countries is growing rapidly each year, averaging 2.5 per cent across sub-Saharan Africa, but the lack of safe water and sanitation reduces our economic growth at twice that rate. And a growing population must be properly fed.

We need to increase our food production by half in the next 20 years. How will we achieve this without reducing the amount and quality of the remaining water resources which we will need for drinking and sanitation? Clearly, clean water is of the highest priority.

The effects of climate change make conserving our precious water resources even more difficult. The people of Africa that are responsible for less than five per cent of the pollution which has changed the planet’s atmosphere, will feel the worst of its impact in terms of flooding and drought.

Climate change places the onus upon the global community to live up to their commitments to reduce by half the proportion of people without access to drinking water and sanitation.

YET DESPITE ALL THE OBSTACLES WE face, I remain an optimist when it comes to Africa’s agricultural development and to water sustainability.

New forms of irrigation pioneered by African scientists and researchers have the potential to transform the way staple foods are cultivated.

Today, only 10 per cent of Africa’s cultivated land is irrigated. Imagine what we can do if this percentage is increased in a way which also does not overburden our water supplies.

We need to make more use of fertilisers to feed nutrient-deficient soils, and of modern crop varieties and new farming techniques to improve yields. We can see already what can be achieved with determination, vision and partnership.

With the right policies and commitment, Africa has the chance to match, indeed better, the Asian agricultural miracle of the last generation.

Better because we can do so in an environmentally sustainable way, which takes fully into account the fact that 80 per cent of us depend in some way on agriculture.

Sustainable supplies of water, its better management and protection are the key to success — just as increased agricultural productivity holds the key to prosperity and our other development goals.