Managing water key to survival

WETLANDS International launched a report aimed at highlighting to policymakers the relationship between the health of wetland ecosystems and involuntary human migration in the Sahel region of Africa.

Entitled “Water Shocks: Wetlands and Human Migration in the Sahel”, the publication examines how poor water management leads to degradation of ecosystems, and is an overlooked cause of human migration, including to Europe.

Around Lake Chad, the Boko Haram insurgency has displaced more than 2.3 million people since mid-2013, including 1.3 million children. The Lake Chad Basin has lost 95% of its surface area owing to water abstraction for irrigation projects, and youths there are joining armed groups.

“Humanitarian organisations need to connect their work with the environmental and development factors to find durable solutions,” said Juriaan Lahr, the head of the International Assistance of the Netherlands Red Cross Society.

The EU has a five-year €80-million (R1.1 billion) funding package available to support disaster risk management across sub-Saharan Africa. By 2020, the EU and the African continent aim to increase energy efficiency and the use of renewables by building 10 000MW of hydropower facilities. According to the UN, there are 20 million people in the Sahel who are food-insecure, mainly because of lack of water. If development plans for hydropower and irrigation projects do not position ecosystems at the heart of national and regional development strategies, Europe and other nations will fail to achieve their goals for sustainable development.

“Driving forward inclusive and sustainable development in the Sahel… will only be achieved by shifting from the traditional development paradigmsand hard infrastructure schemes,” said Jane Madgwick, the chief executive of Wetlands International.