Conclusions and Outlooks for the Future of Water and Food in Africa

To conclude this series of blog posts about Water and Food in Africa, we have explored various challenges and opportunities in the water and agriculture sectors through case studies illustrating the issues at hand, often with geographically sensitive factors that make them unique and not universally applicable in coming up with sweeping, continent wide solutions for the entirety of Africa. 

The challenges of sustainable agriculture and the role of market forces were explored through the case study of Kenya’s cut-flower industry, raising key questions about how best to balance economic development goals and sustainable ecological practice, with the former often taking precedence. The roles of public and private institutions in achieving sustainable water and food provision were then examined through the work of the Uchira Water User Association in Tanzania, showing the complexities of taking a grassroots, community-driven approach to public water infrastructure provision, which also needs sufficient support and subsidisation from national government bodies. The issue of sanitation and the role of the sanitation sector in water and food security was then discussed as the importance of integrated, multi-sectoral approaches to resource and infrastructure management became apparent. Lastly, the looming threats of climate change brought us back to issues of sustainability, and how water and food provision can be achieved without compromising the environment for future generations, as well as the role of adaptive strategies in response to the impacts of climate change.

Bringing all of these issues together, I hope that this blog has given a sense of the broad, complex issues that affect water and food security, with a geographically sensitive approach to issues that are often continent-wide but cannot be addressed with a one size fits all approach. Throughout the process of researching each blog post, I found it increasingly difficult to contain the blog posts to a singular topic as the collection of interlinkages between issues grew. Therefore, a key conclusion of my research would be that cooperation between different government and research sectors is essential for effective policy-making and policy outcomes that are able to address the great range of implications for meeting Africa’s water and food security needs in the present and future. 

Greater intergovernmental action must also be taken to address the ‘inequities in funding and research leadership to inform adaptation’ (Williams et al, 2022), as a matter of international climate justice; much of the disproportionate impact of climate change on food and water security in many African in countries is due to the colonial resource exploitation and post-colonial socio-economic influence on national governments, such as neoliberalisation of government policies under Structural Adjustment Programmes, as a condition for funding. This has further complicated balancing economic development with food security, with countries such as Zimbabwe experiencing significant starvation despite being in a food surplus (Chattopadhay, 2000) due to food becoming unaffordable, and social security being slashed.