Hydropolitics

Over the past 12 weeks we have examined the critical role politics plays in developing and managing shared water resources mainly on the Nile. The interaction between governments, communities and private enterprise have been at the forefront of this research- with the end goal of highlighting the importance of a collaborative discourse between all stakeholders, establishing a common goal for the long term sustainable future of water resources in East Africa. “African water management is also, by definition, transboundary water management”  (Kimenyi and Mbaku, 2015 p1) The Nile River (Waddington, 2014) From a development perspective, population change and demographic transitions have been key in the discourse surrounding contemporary water management frameworks. In 1990, the Nile basin population was 160 million, today this figure has increased by 40% to 224 million people (almost ¼ of Africas population) (Appelgran et.al, 2000). Nile Basin Initiative’s ( 2012 ) repor...

Water Grabbing  “Water grabbing is the process in which powerful players are able to take control of, or reallocate for their own benefit, water resources used by local communities or which feed aquatic ecosystems on which their livelihoods are based” ( Franco et al. 2013a p1653-54 ).  The need for land and the water sources that come with the land has increased dramatically as the human population has grown along with the increased demand for food. The process of land grabbing has been happening for centuries, and is a global phenomenon, though much attention has been paid to land, and the associated water grabbing in Africa (Rulli et.al., 2012). Grabbed water in top 24 most grabbed countries (Guerrilla, 2017) In many countries, the right to the use of water has often been organised at a local level, with informal arrangements between smallholders. These local arrangements are often disregarded as governments, and big corporations seek to formalise the rights...