Anyone living in the Horn of Africa, along the Nile, or near Lake Chad knows that water-related issues are among the most severe and wide-reaching security threats in Africa, and have been for some time now. International partners have, however, been slow to get on board, often grouping water with other 'future' or 'emerging' challenges. Water-related security threats are only future threats in that, unlike with other types of threats, hard science can predict that water-related insecurity in Africa will inevitably become more severe, but this in no way detracts from the severity of the effects of water insecurity today. The impending famine in the Horn, proxy conflicts over Nile watershed water usage, and insecurity surrounding the shrinking of Lake Chad urgently demand a reframing of our conceptualization of what water insecurity in Africa entails. There have been a number of wake-up-calls in recent years which demonstrated how water insecurity underlies many other security threats in Africa. In 2010, the Horn of Africa experienced the driest conditions in 60 years, and combined with political, security, and market factors, resulted in a famine that cost 260,000 lives, half of which were children. The 2012 Sahel famine which threatened an estimated 17 [...]
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