Thirsty Africa Digging Deep For Water

This illustrates perfectly what I was trying to explain in the entry before this one. How does having children do the work disguised as play to run a pump teach them about conservation, irrigation, management, and self sufficiency? This is an absolute CRISIS that is being faced in Sub-Saharan Africa because the lack of water is causing a famine that has put millions of people at risk of death, and already killed thousands including livestock. And while politicians go to initiatives to make feel good speeches and pledge money that doesn't even come close to solving anything, the crisis deepens. They don't need "pledges," they need ACTION NOW because they are running out of time.
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Thirsty Africa Digging Deep For Water

Friday September 22, 07:13 AM

Thirsty Africa 'digging deep for water'

New water sources are desperately needed in Africa where around 300 million people lack access to safe drinking water, the head of the World Water Council said.
Sub-Saharan Africa, with the exception of a few countries, is failing to meet UN targets set at the start of the millennium to halve the number of people without access to clean water or sanitation by 2015.

Of an estimated population of more than 700 million, about 313 million Africans lack access to basic sanitation with drought, war, pollution and fast urban growth hindering access.

"Africa represents about 24 per cent of land surface yet has only 9 per cent of water resources," said Loic Fauchon, head of the World Water Council, an international organisation that groups governments, firms and civil groups.
"That means we have to better the capacity we have to find other water sources maybe with new techniques. ... You have to help Africa draw water deeper just like it is done for petrol and gas," he said.

Speaking on the sidelines of an Africities summit in Nairobi where mayors and planners are meeting to seek solutions to the problems caused by swelling populations in African cities, Fauchon said the 2015 target was too lofty.
"(You need) a lot more time. ... What was forecast in terms of clean water and sanitation was too ambitious," he told Reuters.

"We do not even know at what pace we are going at."

He said Africa's obstacles to achieving the UN Millennium Development Goal (MDG) for water and sanitation were financial, institutional and the "know-how".

"The amounts dedicated to water and sanitation are ridiculously low," he said, adding that only 5 per cent of public aid and 6 per cent of investments were allocated to such projects.