Water Management in Africa and the Middle East: Challenges (IDRC, 1996): Acknowledgments

Water Management in Africa and the Middle East: Challenges (IDRC, 1996)

(introduction...)

Acknowledgments

Preface

Introduction

Part I - Concepts

Demand-side Management, Conservation, and Efficiency in the Use of Africa’s Water Resources

Allocation of Water Resources in Africa: Potential for Moving Water in and out of Agriculture

Women, Men, and Water-Resource Management in Africa

Part II - Subregional contributions

Between the Great Rivers: Water in the Heart of the Middle East

Sources of Strain and Alternatives for Relief in the Most Stressed Water Systems of North Africa

Water Crises and Constraints in West and Central Africa: The Case of C�te D’Ivoire

Strain, Social and Environmental Consequences, and Water Management in the Most Stressed Water Systems in Africa

Strain, Water Demand, and Supply Directions in the most Stressed Water Systems of Eastern Africa

Strain, Water Demand, and Supply Direction in the most Stressed Water Systems of Lesotho, Namibia, South Africa, and Swaziland

Strain, Water Demand, and Supply Directions in the Most Stressed Water Systems of Southern Africa except South Africa and Namibia

Improving Water Supply Systems in Rural West and Central Africa

Part III - Special issues

Water Supply and Management in Rural Ghana: Overview and Case Studies

Water Management, Use, and Conflict in Small-Scale Irrigation: The Case of Rombo in the Kenya Maasailand

NGO Experience, Intervention, and Challenges in Water Strain, Demand, and Supply Management in Africa

Appendix

Acknowledgments

We would like to express our special thanks to Sahar Kamel and Maryse Rabbat for their unsparing efforts to make this workshop a success and for their sustained secretarial assistance and to Brenda Lee Wilson, who contributed a lot of time and thoughtful comments to the editing. Many thanks also go to other IDRC staff - Rosa Ongeso and Muthoni Mwangi, Nairobi, and Ray Vander Zaag and David Ofoumon, Ottawa, for editorial assistance; Flora Shiroya, Nairobi, for bibliographic assistance; and Imelda Wasike, Nairobi, for secretarial assistance. Finally, we thank the text editors, Wilma Fraser and Josephine Mwasi.

Edited by Eglal Rached, Eva Rathgeber, and David Brooks

IDRC May 1996

A water crisis is looming in Africa and the Middle East, where annual renewable freshwater available per person has declined by half since 1950, and continues to decline.

Water Management in Africa and the Middle East is the product of an IDRC workshop in Cairo, where researchers and scientists met to take stock of the crisis, to identify key issues and trends, and to map out strategies for further research and for action. It takes a close look at the problems that beset different regions, from drought-prone East Africa, to the Middle East, where water is a major factor in regional conflicts, to tropical areas where water quality is a concern and water-borne diseases are endemic. It examines the roles of governments and international agencies and looks at the costs and effects of large-scale projects for irrigation and drinking water supply. Equally, it examines the roles of NGOs and community organizations in providing water locally and in ensuring that the needs of rural peoples, the urban poor, women, and other neglected groups are incorporated into water management strategies. The workshop identified means to effect closer cooperation between governments and communities, and to bring more attention to water conservation, without which strategies to manage water in Africa and the Middle East will be neither sustainable nor equitable.

The contributors are the most part researchers and scientists who live and work in Africa and the Middle East, and who deal on a daily basis with the looming water crisis.