Current Affairs: Passage of the Day - 18 September 2024 | Current Affairs & General Knowledge - CLAT PDF Download

Directions: Read the passage carefully and answer the questions that follow.
Water security is not just about how much natural water a country has but also how well the resources are managed, says the annual State of Africa’s Environment 2024 report published by the Centre for Science and Environment and the Down To Earth magazine.

How does a day start in Africa’s most water-endowed country? A citizen of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC, or Congo) wakes up early to start the routine of looking for a water source. If lucky, s/he can find it within six-seven kilometres of residence. This daily trudge is for 10-15 litres of water for a family of six-seven members.

In Congo, women family members are in-charge of water collection and management, besides other household chores. According to an estimate of the World Bank done in 2014, a primary school girl in Congo spent 15 per cent of her time fetching water. A secondary school girl spared 16 per cent of her time for the same. It means a Congolese woman spends a sixth of her life searching and securing water.

Congo’s water scarcity is paradoxical. The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) terms Congo as the “Africa’s water-rich” country. The World Bank estimates that Congo has over 50 per cent of Africa’s surface water reserves and approximately one-quarter of the continent’s water resources. According to Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and UNEP data, river networks cover over 20,000 km and lakes and rivers (86,080 km2) account for approximately 3.5 per cent of Congo’s land area. The Congo River Basin – Africa’s largest river by volume having a consistent flow throughout the year - covers 98 per cent of the country.

Continent Africa suffers from the Congo syndrome: lack of access to water despite abundance of it. With 17 rivers, over 160 lakes and vast wetlands, Africa is endowed with abundant water resources. While the Nile is largely regarded as the world’s longest river (some estimates also peg the Amazon as the longest), Lake Victoria is the second largest in the world. Using various studies, the “State of Africa’s Environment 2024” report says, “Africa’s aquifers hold 0.66 million km2 of water. This is more than 100 times the annual renewable freshwater resources stored in dams and rivers.”

According to an assessment of UNEP, Africa’s renewable water resources average 3,930 km3, which is just less than 9 per cent of the global total. Africa’s wetlands cover approximately 1 per cent of the continent’s total surface area, the above assessment said.

“Groundwater water sources were estimated at 660,000 km2, which is 100 times more compared to the surface waters of the region,” said a research paper by Joan Nyika of the Department of Geoscience and the Environment, Technical University of Kenya, Nairobi and published on Springer Link.

The World Bank’s latest report titled “The Hidden Wealth of Nations: The Economics of Groundwater in Times of Climate Change” said: “In Sub-Saharan Africa, untapped groundwater irrigation potential could be key to improving food security and poverty reduction. Little land is irrigated there, but local shallow aquifers represent over 60 per cent of the groundwater resource, and 255 million people in poverty live above them.” Water withdrawal is very low at 3.8 per cent for both rainfall and internal renewable resources in Africa except for northern African countries with 18.6 per cent for rainfall and 152.6 per cent internal renewable resources.

Africa is the world’s second driest continent, after Australia and also the most water-stressed one. Sub-Saharan Africa was the world’s most water-stressed region between 2020 and 2021, found a survey published in the Lancet Planetary Health journal in November 2022. Nearly 36 per cent of the people surveyed in the region were water insecure, according to the report. Overall, some 14.2 per cent of the respondents were water stressed; while countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, such as Cameroon (63.9 per cent) and Ethiopia (45 per cent), experienced the highest rates of water insecurity, those in Asia, like China (3.6 per cent), experienced the least.

Some 436 million adults of the 3 billion people surveyed across 31 low-and middle-income countries across four regions in Sub-Saharan Africa were water insecure in 2020-21, showed the findings, adding that 21 countries in the region Sub-Saharan Africa accommodated the most water-stressed population in 2021. The study, led by Sera Young, an anthropologist with the Institute for Policy Research, revealed the first snapshot of global experiences with water insecurity.

The researchers were also able to pinpoint which socio-demographic groups experienced the highest rates of water insecurity. They used the Individual Water Insecurity Experiences (IWISE) scale, which they developed to measure individual experiences with access, use, and stability (reliability) of water, to grade the degrees of water insecurity. They asked questions such as how often participants worried about not having enough water, how often they were unable to wash their hands, or how often they changed what they ate because of water shortage.

They found that people with lower levels of income and those residing on the outskirts of cities were more prone to water insecurity. For example, those living in city suburbs or outskirts of Burkina Faso had lower IWISE scores than city residents. Those living in rural areas in Senegal, Congo (Brazzaville), Gabon and Ethiopia shared the same experience.

The UN-led “Global Water Security 2023 Assessment”, released during the UN 2023 Water Conference, found that all African nations were “water insecure” accounting for nearly half of the 114 such nations in the world. Three of the five “critically water insecure” countries in the world are in Africa - Eritrea, Sudan and Ethiopia. Africa accounts for 22 per cent of the world’s critically water insecure population. Around 6.3 billion people (or 78 per cent of the world’s population) live in countries experiencing critical water insecurity or general water insecurity. Of this, 4.3 billion reside in the Asia-Pacific, followed by Africa (1.4 billion), Americas (415 million people) and 65 million in Europe. In the African continent, 13 African countries have been assessed to be in the critically insecure category.

The assessment’s key message is: “Abundant natural water availability does not necessarily ensure water security.” “Many countries in Africa, the Asia-Pacific, and the Americas with abundant freshwater resources have high rates of wash-attributed deaths due to limited wash access, poor water quality and water having low economic value despite potentially high economic losses due to floods or droughts,” said the study.

It reasons the desperate situation with the state of water, “Africa has the lowest levels of safe wash (water, sanitation and hygiene) services worldwide, contributing to low levels of water security in the region. Almost 31 per cent (over 411 million) of people in the 54 African countries, including 33 LDCs and 6 SIDS, do not have access to a basic drinking water service. Only 201 million people (15 per cent) have access to safely managed drinking water.”

Notwithstanding the fact that the continent accounts for 9 per cent of the global freshwater resources, nearly 66 per cent of Africa’s total area fall under the arid or semi-arid categories. Distribution of water resources is highly skewed in Africa. Six countries account for 54 per cent of the continent’s total water supply. On the other hand, 27 countries with severe water scarcity (also referred to as water poverty) share just 7 per cent of the total supply. This explains the high water scarcity condition in Sub Saharan Africa where more than half of the population don’t have access to safe drinking water.

[Excerpt from Down To earth "State of Africa’s Environment 2024" Dated 18/09/24]

Q1: What is the death rate due to unsafe water in sub-Saharan Africa?
(a) Over 10 per 100,000 people
(b) Over 50 per 100,000 people
(c) Over 100 per 100,000 people
(d) Over 200 per 100,000 people

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Q2: What percentage of child deaths in Africa are caused by poor sanitation?
(a) 5%
(b) 8%
(c) 12%
(d) 15%

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Q3: How many children under five died due to inadequate sanitation in sub-Saharan Africa in 2021?
(a) 100,000
(b) 150,000
(c) 254,000
(d) 500,000

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Q4: What is the estimated economic impact of poor water and sanitation on sub-Saharan Africa’s GDP?
(a) Reduces GDP by 2%
(b) Reduces GDP by 4%
(c) Reduces GDP by 6%
(d) Reduces GDP by 8%

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Q5: How many people in sub-Saharan Africa still practice open defecation?
(a) 100 million
(b) 150 million
(c) 196 million
(d) 250 million

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