AMANZI– the Water Crisis in the Southern tip of Africa with an example of the latest water crisis in Cape town ,South Africa and other African regions ,cities and villages are a great lesson to humanity that we need to take responsibility in the conservation of our environment thus including water sources . We have as humanity for a long time from generation to generation perpetuated the cutting down of trees leading to serious negative impacts like massive land erosion and siltation . We have indulged in irresponsible industrial global civilizations that have affected negatively our climatic patterns resulting as well in floods and untold suffering from heat waves and droughts losing lives and resources in the way. We just need to be a responsible citizenry that we live our lives to the fullest without the danger of the effects of climate change. Underneath is a lamentation for the water crisis in Cape town city of South Africa- Jambiya is a Creative Life Coach ,Arts Activist ,Poet and Storyteller of note.
NB – the Amanzi Water Journal call upon citizens in Southern Africa to participate in Southern Africa Faith Communities for Environment Institute(SAFCEI) Events , programs ,demos and trainings for a better understanding of environmental issues .Follow our blog , send us Likes and contact us at amanziglobaljournal@gmail.com
A City under Siege
Vusi Thembekwayo wisely said,
“Nothing is guaranteed
it is gifted”.
Why then do leaders control?
earth’s gifts –
water and vegetation;
destroy what is sown
by working hands
and fertilized by soil.
Theu lord over springs nurtured in stone
The people blame the H20 crises and famine on political manipulation and lies –
human maintenance and monocracy –
perhaps they are right,
Yet their bloated egos and guzzling
rob the poor of each drop
by which they live.
“Damn the bloody law”, they shout.
Conspiracy theories take precedence,
driven by an insatiable hunger for justice,
views on land repartition;
the rights of the Khoi and San.
Global warming, population explosions
and no rains
but to hell with the white man
who caused Africa’s pain –
May the black man rot as he
insists brown must be black.
Blame government for
gangsterism and depravity –
while the inhumane kill and plunder.
Damned apartheid that stripped
Africa’s sparkle and
broke her morale and humanity;
stole her integrity and peace;
raised her corruption
and false conditional grants.
Societies steal because
they are stolen from,
hate because they are hated,
they’re bigots because of prejudice,
thieves because
the poor must eat,
the old regime stole land and possessions –
the current status quo no different.
South Africa has become
what she hates –
a polluted representative democracy.
Hell indeed hath no fury
like a woman scorned.
rapists are torched yet
mothers leave toddlers to play
in streets till dark;
blame it on the system
who abuses women
as slave labour –
she lies drunk and drugged
while her boyfriend fondles
her 5year old.
He blames an unrepentant penis
and an appetite for health.
Evil is all around but the people
are stiff-necked and
stone institutions that
have long moved on –
It’s fathers dead and gone.
Communities play into the hands of apartheid’s prophecies
and bitterness has become
the compass by which
they journey into the future,
while our children die
and our earth dries up;
South Africa lashes out at the ghost who still haunts her heart and home.
She has ceased to take
responsibility for her actions;
It’s easier to blame a moving target;
and flog a lame horse;
and so her pride
and heritage disintegrates.
vigilantes move in,
the law falls at its own hand –
the mother-land is parched;
manhood is gradually killed off,
womanhood violated.
Capitalists
Socialists
Humanists
Scientists
debate;
Whose to blame –
do the rich own the mountains,
the oceans and the land –
do the people –
the Khoi or the San?
We challenge drought alerts;
“It’s a hoax” we say,
as the arid land mourns,
our egos grow,
intellectual theories mount;
Acquivers are pumped
desalination disputed –
Springs milked.
Manenberg revisits the stone-age
Fires ravage natural resources
Hanover park is shot into doomsday
Khayelitsha a mere carcass of its beauty –
The Lost City drenched as with
the sweat of a TB patient.
But our hate escalates
Our pangas fulfil their arc
Our greed grins menacingly
our poverty perverts integrity
The sangoma throws his bones –
we cannabalise –
and dog eats dog –
rebels of an alien kind.
When hope buckles
some relent;
but others,
pray.
Blame blame
Whose to blame?
Our taps leak
Crops die
the earth thirsts
and our blood runs free –
“The Wise Vusi” said,
“Nothing is guaranteed,
It is all gifted”.
Let the pipes of peace
ring out and pray
that earth’s gift of springs
quench Africa’s thirst.
(C)Jambiya
“The power of the word”
Jambiya–is an emotive writer who weaves the tragedy and victory of the human experience into a tapestry of memorable imagery and metaphor? She speaks with honesty on the spiritual and social challenges of our time. Jambiya’s works are a must read for those accustomed to the jaded perfunctory cleverness of modern wordsmiths.
Stephen McCaffrey, Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of the Pacific, McGeorge School of Law, in Sacramento, California, is the single most respected authority on International Water Law. His work continues to influence scholars, legal practitioners and policy-makers and contribute to the sustainable and peaceful management of shared waters.
On receiving news of the prize, Professor McCaffrey says: “Learning about the Stockholm Water Prize literally took my breath away. I am deeply honoured and humbled to have been selected for this prestigious award. But one also stands on the shoulders of others, and I am most grateful to those who have paved the way for me.”
In its citation, the Stockholm Water Prize Nominating Committee recognizes Professor McCaffrey’s “path-breaking leadership and legal scholarship in international water law. He has made a unique contribution in three specific areas: his seminal work on Treaty negotiation; his major scholarly works, including his book The Law of International Watercourses and; his leadership providing expert legal advice, wise counsel, training and facilitation of complex negotiations with a wide range of stakeholders.”
Professor McCaffrey has been acting as legal counsel to states in several negotiations concerning international watercourses. He has served as counsel in many inter-State disputes over shared water resources, for example between Argentina and Uruguay, Pakistan and India, and Slovakia and Hungary, which have been heard by international courts and tribunals.
This post is adapted from Stockholm International Water Prize , SIWI website to inspire other Water scientists , advocates of water governance and conservation as well as innovation.
Readers continue to send your comments on our blog site , like it and follow it .Our email address is amanziglobaljournal@gmail.com.
was born on a spring night of 15th March in the year 1981. She enjoys her journey to the literary world. Most of her works are poems of different genres.She is the author of three poetry collections : ‘To Evince The Blue’ (Published from USA, 2012), ‘Beyond The Vernal Mind’ (Published from USA, 2014) and ‘Versified’ (Published from Tel Aviv, Israel, 2016)Her poetry is the reflection of her own life experience.Her works have been translated into various languages: Japanese, Romanian, Urdu,Italian, Dutch, Spanish, Russian, Bengali and Irish. Her poetry has been published in several anthologies, literary journals, magazines and in newspapers.
Experts Warn that Seabed Mining Will Lead to ‘Unavoidable’ Loss of Biodiversity
DANIEL OBERHAUS
Tam Warner Minton/Flickr/CC-by-2.0
Seabed mining companies are going to wipe out species we don’t even know exist yet.
An international group of 15 marine scientists and legal scholars published a letter on Monday warning of the dire effects that the nascent seabed mining industry could have on bottom dwelling marine life.
The letter, published in Nature Geoscience, is the latest in a series of increasingly desperate pleas from marine scientists to pump the brakes on mining the seafloor until marine scientists are able to get a better idea of what the effects this industry will have on this woefully understudied area of the planet.
“Unlike on land, most of the biodiversity and ecosystem function in the deep sea is poorly understood,” Cindy Dover, a professor of biological oceanography at Duke University and one of the signatories to the letter, told me via email. “We have learned that the deep sea is as exquisitely diverse as any bit of shallow marine or terrestrial environment. What we don’t understand is how much we can degrade deep-sea ecosystems before we reach tipping points, where the loss of biodiversity and ecosystem function affects the health of the ecosystem beyond levels that are acceptable to society.”
As such, Van Dover and the other signatories on the letter call for the International Seabed Authority, the UN-sanctioned regulatory body for the ocean’s floor, to recognize the risk posed by deep sea mining and communicate this risk to the public at large.
“We ask that biodiversity loss resulting from deep-sea mining be recognized and be part of the public discourse about mining,” Van Dover said. “The scientific community has been invited by the ISA to provide recommendations on responsible environmental practices for deep-sea mining. Our peer-reviewed letter responds to this invitation.”
Although the deep sea (defined as anything below a depth of about 650 feet) accounts for roughly two-thirds of the Earth’s surface, we know remarkably little about what goes on down there. Dozens of new species are routinely discoveredduring forays to the bottom of the ocean and the deep sea ecosystem isn’t well understood.
Nevertheless, the deep sea has become the site of a new gold rush in recent years. The discovery of a wealth of precious minerals such as nickel and cobalt, in addition to oil and potentially lifesaving molecules have incentivized seabed mining operations to begin exploratory missions to the bottom of the ocean to start staking claims.
To get an idea of how this industry is developing, the authors of the recent letter point out that in 2001 there were only six contracts for deep sea mining operations. By the end of 2017, however, there will be 27 deep sea mining contracts. Of these, 17 will be in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone, a region of the Pacific Ocean between Hawaii and Central America. One of the proposed mining contracts alone covers 32,000 square miles, an area larger than the state of Maine.
Although some proponents of deep sea mining argue that the effects of this industry can be offset by taking more environmentally friendly measures elsewhere, such asbuilding artificial reefs, the authors of the letter are calling BS.
“The argument that you can compensate for the loss of biological diversity in the deep sea with gains in diversity elsewhere is so ambiguous as to be scientifically meaningless,” Craig Smith, a professor of oceanography at the University of Hawaii, said in a statement.
“This is like saving apple orchards to protect oranges,” Van Dover added.
For now, these contracts remain exploratory as the ISA struggles to establish adeep sea regulatory regime. But as the letter’s authors rightfully worry, it will be hard to establish effective seabed regulations since so little is known about the ocean floor.
“The ISA has begun working on regional environmental protection plans that include identifying networks of Areas of Particular Environmental Interest (APEI) within regions of interest to contractors,” Van Dover told me. “Mining and mining impacts would be excluded in these APEIs. Science-based recommendations for the design of these APEIs call for them to include representative habitats in the region.”
Until these regulations are in place, however, the authors of the letter call for the ISA to acknowledge that deep sea mining will certainly be harmful to deep ocean biodiversity. According to the authors of the letter, this damage will likely be irrevocable. Even more frightening is that we’d likely never know the full extent of the damage because marine scientists won’t have the opportunity to establish sufficient baseline measurements before the mining frenzy begins.
“I do not know if responsible seabed mining is possible, given knowledge gaps in our understanding of deep-sea biodiversity and function, and the possibility that the cost of good, science-based environmental management and monitoring may be too high at present relative to the value of the product,” Van Dover said. “There are ways to fill these knowledge gaps, but they require time and investment.
… this article was adapted from the MOTHERBOARD JOURNAL………………
Born beside water
Thrown into it to float,
Grew up, a fish
Survival, inside it.
Born in the shanty
Bred in the slum,
Suffering in the ghetto
Drowning in the island.
No boat, no ship
No bridge, no border
Toxic waste, gaseous water
Muddy water, moody life.
Rains wash the farms
Floods sweep the shelters,
Rivers overflow their banks
Tragedy booming the doom,
Aquatic land, dead people.
The Poet is Nigerian born Ngozi Olivia Osuoha widely published in Nigeria , Africa , Canada and around the globe . The Author can be contacted at the following,ngozi.osuoha@yahoo.com or inbox her on Facebook,https://www.facebook.com/ngoziolivia.osuoha.3 .
We invite you to continue visiting our blogjournal , post your comments , follow and like AmanziGlobalWaterJournal . Our email adress is amanziglobaljournal@gmail.com.
Africa is highly populated as much it is decorated by mushrooming informal settlements widely named as SLUMS. Slums are usually not socially , economically , politically and morally connected to national systems.One of the biting challenges of these slum settlements is Water poverty, poor social networks and absence of proper economic governance. WATER is rarely available such that these slums become havens of moral decadence, disease and death examples being Kibera in Kenya and Makoko in Nigeria. This article seeks to expose the rot perpetuated by poor water governance in some African countries in both formal and informal settlements.
KIBERA– Like in many other slums and shantytowns around the world, water is scarce, costly, uncertain, and contaminated in Kibera, Nairobi. Part of the reason for this is because it is an informal settlement that is built without official authorization and regulation.
But the water crisis in Kibera is particularly severe for many reasons. Due to a combination of political exclusion, the operation of water mafias, water rationing, and poor infrastructure, residents of Kibera pay more for water than wealthier Kenyans in tapped neighborhoods of Nairobi, and more than even what Europeans and New Yorkers pay (see Crow and Odaba 2009; World Bank 2005). Kibera households spend up to 20% of their income on water—which can be equal to the cost of rent (UNDP 2006).
On good days, the women and children of Kibera spend just under an hour locating a water vendor, queuing up, and carrying back the water. They will pay Ksh 2-3 per 20 liter (4 gallon) jerry can of water from any of the 650 water vendors in Kibera, roughly 98% of which are private enterprises and 20 that are run by community based organizations or NGOs. The Nairobi Water and Sewage Company recommends that the price for a jerry can of water be Ksh 1, so even at Ksh 2, residents of Kibera pay eight times the lowest tariff at domestic connections and four times the average tariff in Kenya (World Bank 2005). In some villages, up to 85% of households are estimated to rely on these private and community owned water kiosks (Umande Trust 2007).
When there is a shortage—which occurs four times a month on average—the price of water skyrockets to Ksh 5-10 and even up to Ksh 30 per jerry can (see Crow and Odaba 2009). On these days, women and children of Kibera can spend all day looking for water. If they cannot find clean water or if the price of water is too high, they will consume substandard water from a free yard tap or natural spring most of which (if not all) are contaminated and unsafe for drinking.
Many of the reasons why water is so expensive is outside the control of water vendors—such as the rationing of water three times a week by the Nairobi Water Company, and the high capital costs of traders (e.g., laying pipes and paying bribes, the latter which is reportedly a quarter of initial investment costs, World Bank 2005). But water and other utility services in Kibera have been known to be controlled by local gangs and cartels, who often collude with utility officials to create artificial shortages for rapid profits. High prices are also made possible by the concentration of water sales to a select number of kiosks. A World Bank survey (2005, pg. 7), for instance, showed that two-thirds of the water sold in Kibera over a seven day period came from 29% of all kiosks.
If the root of water problems in Kibera centered on price and supply it may be manageable, but issues of water quality substantially complicate clean water delivery systems. Most water pipes in Kibera run above ground and are made of plastic (due to issues with theft of steel pipes), which are highly fragile and easily manipulated. These pipes will often crack or break (either accidentally due to traffic or intentionally by competitors), allowing sewage to seep into drinking water. Indeed, water sources that are generally clean can easily become contaminated without notice. This is reflected in public health data—infant mortality rates and bloody diarrheal infection rates in Kibera are more than three times the average of Nairobi as a whole (UNDP 2006).
NGOMBE– Sept 14 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Dorothy Zulu’s dream is to have a water tap and a small vegetable garden in her home in Ngombe, one of many slums in Zambia’s capital Lusaka.
To get water Zulu, a mother of six, has to be at one of the dozens of water kiosks dotted round the dusty neighbourhood by 6 a.m.
“You have to wake up early because by 10 a.m. there is no water left,” Zulu, 54, said while washing her laundry in the murky waters of a shallow stream running through Ngombe.
Zulu survives on 10 kwacha ($1) a day and, like the majority of Ngombe’s 120,000 residents, spends up to a third of it on water.
“If you don’t have money here you can’t drink water,” Zulu told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
Overall, the proportion of people in Zambia with access to clean water has increased since 1990. But in urban areas it has dropped to 85 percent in 2012 from 89 percent in 1990.
With Zambia’s population forecast to grow five-fold or more by 2100, experts expect the southern African country will struggle to meet the demand for water, especially in urban areas where population growth is expected to be fastest.
To achieve universal access to clean water and sanitation by 2030, one of the development targets global leaders are due to adopt at a U.N. summit later this month, Zambia will have to provide water to all, including those living in slums.
It will also need to focus on repairing and expanding its dilapidated infrastructure, water experts say.
“The lack of access to water in informal settlements is a global issue which reflects a broader pattern of discrimination and inequality in the world,” Catarina de Albuquerque, executive chair of the global partnership organisation Sanitation and Water for All, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
“The underlying idea of the SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals) is that no goal should be considered as met unless it is met for all economic and social groups, including the people in the slum.”
Only about 36 percent of Lusaka’s more than two million residents have piped water in their homes, according to Zambia’s National Water Supply and Sanitation Council (NWASCO).
Only half of Ngombe’s residents have access to clean water, according to Brian Chanda, plant superintendent at Ngombe Water Trust, a community group which manages the slum’s water supply.
The rest rely on often contaminated shallow wells, private boreholes or vendors who sell water at a 50 percent markup from the tariff set by the Ngombe Water Trust.
The Trust has two boreholes in Ngombe and also buys water from provincial utility Lusaka Water and Sewerage Company (LWSC), but water from LWSC is rationed in parts of Lusaka because demand exceeds LWSC’s supply, creating a shortfall of 80,000 cubic metres per day, according to UN HABITAT.
As a result, the Trust is only able to fill its tanks for four hours a day.
“We need more boreholes because the population is growing almost every day,” Chanda told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
LWSC has promised to dig two more boreholes in Ngombe by October but 10 extra boreholes would be better, Chanda said.
TETE– Water and sanitation improvement is an essential step to stop cholera, a waterborne disease. In Mozambique, where a current outbreak has killed 46 people and affected over 5.000 people according to official statistics, MSF’s teams are working to improve the situation. But it takes more than a quick, technical fix.
“What is it that you want? Build a water treatment station, or have people use it?”, asks Eveline, an MSF health promotion officer.
The rough rubber boots and the already dusty MSF vests may not be screaming “diplomatic mission”, but it’s more or less what this morning is about: understanding, talking, explaining, and convincing local leaders on how to defeat cholera.
In the Tete cholera treatment center there has been an increasing influx of patients from Chimadzi, a large ‘bairro’ midway between urban slum and big village.
Cholera outbreak means unsafe water supply and poor hygiene and sanitation; so the ‘watsan guys’ like Mihail Papageorgiou, a water and sanitation specialist, play a key role in the response.
He already knows what should be set up in the area: a water treatment unit that will soak the water from the nearby river, clean it, and deliver it, for free, to the 3000 families.
Gabriela, MSF counsellor, health promotion team, gives a speech in Dégué village, to explain to the local population how to prevent cholera. Photo: Luca Sola
“This centralized water treatment system is designed for rapid response. We could have come with 20 guys, and within three hours we would have been done; bang, bang; in and out.”
This hardware component of the response, setting up the most appropriate water treatment system, indeed is mainly a technical issue and can go quick. But the real challenge lies in trying to improve the users’ understanding and correct use of this system, or the ‘software’ component.
ZIMBABWE -In the pre- Independence era the Town planning authorities and Central Government planned that each City/Town should have roughly 3 years supply in storage at any one point in time.
At that time with population growth doubling every 20 years and urban populations growing at 6 per cent per annum with the drift from rural areas to the urban centers, this meant that we had to build a major new dam for raw water supply every 5 to 10 years. Urban Councils were left to build their own dams with State assistance and water sales constituted a significant proportion of income to Councils on top of electricity sales, license fees including vehicle licenses, rates and taxes.
Since Independence the Central Government has steadily stripped Councils of revenue sources starting with electricity sales and the transfer, without compensation of the two thermal power stations in Harare and Bulawayo to ZESA, the loss of control of bulk water supplies to ZINWA who now charge for bulk water supplies even from dams built by the Councils and the loss of vehicle license fees. In addition no new dams have been build now for over 25 years despite rapid urban expansion – so that today the infrastructure supplying Harare metropolitan area with over 6 million inhabitants, has a water infrastructure for a City of half a million people.
Bulk storage of water in all urban areas is down to 18 months or less rather than the 3 years previously stipulated and plans for new bulk water sources such as the Gwaai/Shangani and Harare North water supplies, have not made any progress despite years of planning and promises. Bulk water supplies remain the monopoly of ZINWA which has failed dismally and cannot even manage the aquifer system to the north of Bulawayo which has the potential to supply the full requirements of the City.
In addition to this, the decision, for purely short term political reasons to cancel, at the stroke of a pen, over US$600 million in outstanding rates and taxes in 2013 by the then Minister Chombo has crippled the Urban Councils financially. With total revenues from all sources for all urban Councils now running at about US$600 million a year, half of which is in Harare and urban council populations now exceeding 8 millions, gives the Councils a annual spend of just US$75 per capita per annum.
This is a totally inadequate sum to deal with the many urgent priorities. Councils receive no transfers from Central Government for their extensive Health and Education services, total transfers from ZINARA for road maintenance does not come anywhere near enough for road maintenance of the twenty thousand kilometers of urban roads. In the case of the City of Harare vehicle license fees used to be nearly US$10 million a year – ZINARA has sent less than US$1,2 million to the City this past year.
The new national Constitution provides for Central Government to distribute 5 per cent of Central Government revenues to local authorities – that is a sum of US$200 million a year. For three years now the Zanu PF led Government, with the full support and collusion of the Ministry of Local Government, has failed to pay this sum – largely because the Councils are controlled by the MDC T.
Instead of supporting the democratically elected Councils, the Minister and the Ministry of Local Government spend 90 per cent of their time trying to undermine the Councils and to prevent them achieving the goals set for them by their electorates. Councils are hounded, subjected to arbitrary suspensions and their decisions rescinded at will. With totally inadequate resources and little support from Central Government it is no surprise that the Urban Councils are failing in their efforts to maintain water supplies and other services to the rapidly growing populations for which they are responsible.
In 1980, the national population was about 9 million and was growing at 3,6 per cent per annum with a life expectancy of 60 years. Today, 37 years later our population is just 13 million and the average life expectancy is 35 years. If there are nearly 5 million Zimbabweans living outside the country in the Diaspora, this means that there are some 5 million people who should be alive and living in Zimbabwe but who have died prematurely over the past 37 years. Zimbabwe has the highest maternal mortality and infant mortality in the World. Our death rates have doubled since 1980 involving about 200 000 people a year.
For the Minister to blame MDC led Councils for the death of just 500 people this year is simply laughable. Zanu PF and the Minister himself are guilty of deaths on a scale that could easily be described as genocide. What else do we call the tens of thousands of women who die each years in childbirth or the tens of thousands of children who die before the age of five or the 30 000 people who die from Malaria or the 60 000 people a year who die of Tuberculosis.
The water crisis in our urban centers is in many ways a National Emergency and should be treated as such by everyone concerned.
These countries above are a true case study of poor water governance in Africa. It is high time that citizens of these countries , water scientists , water governance activists , Water governance organisations and governments to take stern measures for the provision of water , proper water distribution and formalization of informal settlements into the mainstream governance system for equal social and economic beneficiation of all citizens , every citizen has a right to WATER and other social as well as economic amenities.
We want to thank Reuters Foundation , the Zimbabwean Newspaper, the Guardian Newspaper , Mmaji blog in Kenya and the News Day in Zimbabwe for well written articles on which we picked to give the world an overview of the STATE OF WATER GOVERNANCE and the dangers perpetuated by the WATER CRISIS CHALLENGE mostly in African Slums and even main cities. African governments have failed their people on the WATER ISSUE. Africans are widely depending on DONOR AID – WATER AID , FOOD AID , MONEY AID AND EDUCATION AID, despite the abundance of its resources especially rivers , lakes , seas , lagoons and oceans. MASSIVE CORRUPTION is hampering Water Infrastructure Development , Water Governance and Distribution.
Readers , Writers , Poets and Scientists you can kindly send your stories, articles , essays ,poems and opinions to amanziglobaljournal@gmail.com . You can also send your comments , likes and kindly follow our blog journal. We have currently opened a Facebook Group, we currently need your support to make the group grow-
In a startling move, the newly constituted Environment Management Committee of the City of Harare chaired by Councilor Hebert Gomba made a resolution which was presented to the full yesterday on 07 April 2016 to go ahead with construction work on Monavale Vlei (wetland). Monavale Vlei is a Ramsar site which is amongst the seven wetlands earmarked for preservation by the Government of Zimbabwe in line with its commitment to the Ramsar Convention. The previous Environment Management Committee with the able leadership of the now Deputy Mayor Councilor Chris Mbanga had seen substance is preserving wetlands as important water sources. The current leadership has seen it fit to violate international conventions and frustrate efforts to realize the human right to water enshrined in Section 77(a) of Constitution Amendment 20.
City of Harare is currently using USD3 million to purify water. The high purification costs are caused by heavily polluted raw water in Harare. Wetlands purify raw water free of charge. In the current environment of climate change, Monavale wetland act as an important carbon sink, discharge raw water into Marimba River and purify raw water feeding into Lake Chivero. Lake Chivero is now rated among the top ten dirty lakes in the world and this poses challenges on affordability of potable water. One chief component of the human right to water is that water has to be affordable; the charges for water should not exceed 5% of household income. Although the current charges of water in Harare fulfill this requirement, the decisions made by the Environment Management Committee is a catastrophic avalanche and a right to water violation juggernaut that compromise future endeavors to fulfill, protect and respect the right to water and sanitation.
Sustainable Development Goals 6 and 13 which speaks to sustained access to water for all and climate change respectively, demands among other things waste water management; water efficiency; integrated water resources management; and protection of aquatic ecosystems. Wetlands play a very important role in fulfilling the targets and indicators for Goal 6 and 13.
Community Water Alliance appeals to the Mayor of Harare Councilor Bernard Manyenyeni to exercise leadership and wise counsel so that the future of Harare water provision is preservation and restored. We implore the good office of the Mayor to provide remedy to the bad decision made on behalf of citizens and future generations of Harare. The Ministry of Environment, Water and Climate as well as the Environment Management Agency should also help in ensuring that wetlands in Zimbabwe are preserved and restored.
Citizens , readers , scholars and writers you can send your articles to amanziglobaljournal@gmail.com
The untouchable, the unstoppable, the unconquerable,
I determine your life, your very essence, your cadence.
You have manipulated me to your advantage but if you mishandle me
You will face my full, wrath and curse upon the land.
My absence is like a woman craving for her husband
Who has deserted her when she still deeply yearns for him?
Who feels the groins in her loins?
Who has been deprived of the affection and sustenance?
Who is at the point of famish because the blemish that cements her soul has vanished?
Who raises her head in anticipation and expectation that her pleas will be heard by the dead or buried?
Or by the powers above and beyond?
Who upon his startling come back is taken aback?
By the forceful desire and faces a quagmire,
Of how she can survive this hot blood that gushes and oozes
From his insatiable desires and unquenchable thirst.
You cry out – from the flood to a thud!
Thrown into the mud to chew cud.
Have you really counted your blessings and savings?
Imagine If I simply vanish for good?
My absence is toxic, my presence is melodic.
Embrace and nurture me well.
I will take care of you my WIFE.
My EARTH, My LOVE.
Am I blessing or a curse?
You well know,
You thrive because I am life.
I am water, I matter!
By Valeria Lemani
**********
We have a special art piece that was designed to dedicate all the affected souls ,who have felt the effects of flooding ( In commemoration of The Tokwe Mukosi Disaster 2015), the recent Cyclone Dineo that affected some parts of Mozambique, South Africa , Zimbabwe and the flooding in urban areas that caused devastation to property and homes.
Please contact valerialemani@gmail.com for further details on this artwork or any other specific custom order.
You can find a varied range of our artwork @ https://www.etsy.com/shop/TheTribebrand.
Send more poems , water , environmental , climate and earth articles , opinions and stories to amanziglobaljournal@gmail.com.
Chitungwiza is small dormitory town 21 km off the Capital city of Harare in Zimbabwe. Its population has since increased while the service delivery mainly WATER SUPPLY is fast dwindling impacting negatively to the lives of the growing town population.
Chitungwiza in particular is one of the high density suburb in deep cries for a resolution to the issue of water crises since the delivered services are beyond capacity.
The deteriorated standards of water provision in Chitungwiza has left us in despair with each day to a burden , as water stands the quest daring to quench our misery in this aridity. This is so disturbing at how ZINWA ,Zimbabwe National Water Authority has failed us ,our council static to solutions without any renovations being done on broken pipes and engines. With each month dues are demanded yet the tapes ooze once a week thus only on a Monday , in total week tap water is available only four days a month. While thirst and water less citizens weep of being robbed of their hardly earned money by careless water authorities.
More to our misery , Chitungwiza has faced the highest records of cholera and various water borne diseases worth to inflict turmoil to the masses, recently the Primary and secondary schools forced forced to go on half day lessons schedules now we are victims of circumstances with barely efforts made to deal with the crisis at hand. Moreover even R.Davis waterworks have failed us because for years now the sewerage pipes burst unevenly most often when the taps ooze only for less than 3600 minutes.
The adage ” water is life , conservation the future” cease to exist in our domain , only a half handled measure was put in reaction – a few boreholes drilled at hotspots nevertheless it can’t make a difference since access is by propaganda. Now conservation not an option , source we need , funding we crave for.
Statistics has it that $23 be paid for current dues of every homestead however we have barely seen changes to have claimed those charges . The act is so lame by the council men accompanied by a spanner to install a stopper to the dry taps in my hood for metres readings suggests arrears due. The real deal left unattended by the city fathers , Councillors , and even the members of parliament .
Like all concerned citizens , I call upon the ministry of water , Zimbabwe Water Authority and our Chitungwiza municipality to work with the citizens to find last solutions to avert the challenges of water in our once beloved town.
Letter created by Wilson Wilson , Edited and developed by Mbizo Chirasha ,publisher of the Amanziglobalwaterjornal.
Amanzi – Amanzi is greatly humbled by publishing the inaugural opinion in our AmanziGlobalWaterJournal/. Akor Emmanuel Oche is a mesmerizing essayist ,opinionist ,poet and writer who has also now proven that he is a staunch advocate of water governance . He gives an African Water Narrative that exposes the ills perpetuated by WATER POLLUTION and the ordeals faced by citizens and nature due to negligent industrial projects around Africa , which also impacted much on our water ecosystem ,people , climate and nature. Essayist Akor delves into a thought provoking African water narrative.
To readers , Writers , Essayists , Water governance organisations and sponsors kindly contact us at The Publishers or Mbizo Chirasha- Editor –At-Large at amanziglobaljournal@gmail.com
We look forward growing this journal through your maximum , moral , financial and creative support . We at Amanzi we are ready to embrace every project that touches on the importance water , clean water and water governance. Water is life , Water is precious!
Water is life. Water support’s life, water is one of the key reasons why living things exist on the planet today in addition to air, whose primary by-product is oxygen, and other factors essential for existence. The world is said to be situated upon a massive bed of water whose visible body structure account for about 70% of the world’s body framework. It won’t be a fallacy statement to say that the 7.1billions of us—mankind, live in between the bowels of water, like babies in their mother’s womb. There is water suspended above us in form of clouds, there is water beneath us in form of sea-beds, water is within us as lakes, ponds, rivulets, streams and falls. Water beautifies our planets when they appear as massive mountains of ice in the Antarctica which we refer to as the Glaciers. Yet it remains a thing of wonder how a planet so blessed with such elaborate expanse of a particular natural resources continue to suffer endlessly from the deficiency of it.
The lack of properly treated water, conducive for human consumption, has continued to be one of the greatest challenges bedeviling humanity for centuries unending. As man continues to procreate and his population begins to expand even unto an almost explosion of humans on the planet, so does the crises of water increases. Yes it is true that there is water everywhere on the planet but years of research and experience has shown that not all kinds of water supports life, thus saying that not all waters are meant to sustain the continuous existence of man. Take for an example the people of the Niger-delta belt in Nigeria (a people who have over the years been practically turned into an experimental specimen by the oil industry of the world) who are situated in water, a people who are giving birth to in water, grow up in water and performs their daily activities in water, but are still in grave of need it owing to the fact that, although sea water may be good enough for domestic activities like washing, and may also support the life of some sea creatures, it is however very harmful for human consumption. So they, the people of this belt, have to turn inwardly to shallow streams and brooks deep in the heart of the mangroves that cover their few available lands as sources of drinkable water. This has been the practice of numerous people all over the world in diverse countries, who have been the victims of technological exploitation for many years. Though the world is advanced and has reached an age when minor issues like the supply of quality water for all mankind can be tackled with a swift of the palms if the right motivation is put into work, its remains an irony, yet, why there is still high shortage of water in many parts of the world. This essay therefore, makes a case for the downtrodden in the human circle, which accounts for the larger segment of this cycle and goes further in demystifying the causes of this lack taking perspective from the angle of political neglect especially in Africa.
According to the United Nations general assembly of 28 July 2010, the governing body of the organization “explicitly recognized the human right to water and sanitation and acknowledged that clean drinking water and sanitation are essential to the realization of all human rights” (resolution A/RES/64/292. United Nations General Assembly, July 2010). But this is just like millions of many other resolutions on paper which do not fulfill, as would be expected, their implimentive role in mitigating the sufferings of millions of poor people world over. In continents like Africa where public unhidden abuse of fundamental human rights and upmost neglect of the plight of the citizenry by the powers of the day is a regular phenomenon of daily life, the political will power to chase the war against unclear water is almost an illusion. This neglect by leaders whose primary roles Is the safe guarding of its citizens life, property and means of livelihood, has resulted into gruesome statistical facts like the once below.
• In rural Sub-Saharan Africa, millions of people share their domestic water sources with animals or rely on unprotected wells that are breeding grounds for pathogens.
• The average distance that women in Africa and Asia walk to collect water is 6 kilometers
• At any one time, close to half of all the people in developing countries are suffering from health problems caused by poor water and sanitation. Together, unclean water and poor sanitation is the world’s second largest killer of children. It has been calculated that 443 million school days are lost each year to water-related illness. (www.un.org)
One might feel that this lack of clean water in Africa is restricted to the rural communities alone, but the reality is different. Take Nigeria for a case study, even in the most developed cities like Abuja and Lagos, people are still seen every morning making impossible queues around neighborhood taps in a quest to secure water for simple acts such as bathing and cooking while the business of wheelbarrow pushers who deal in the buying and selling kegs of pipe borne water becomes a thriving one for jobless youths that parade the cities and this is a nation that is said to be the giant of the African continent. This politics of wickedness and abscenticism from billed obligations has lead to massive water pollution in areas where ample deposits of crude oil have been discovered and are under exploration across the continent and its effect is most devastating in the case of such communities situated within Nigeria. A report on the guardian dated Thursday 4th August 2011 by John Vidal record that “Even though oil operations have ceased in Ogoniland (south-south Nigeria), oil spills continue to occur in alarming regularity. Since life expectancy in Nigeria is less than 50 years, it is fair assumption most people in Ogoniland have lived with chronic oil pollution throughout their lives…Ogoniland has a tragic history of pollution but systematic scientific information has been absent about the ensuing contamination. Oil company records and investigations of spills in the delta are heavily disputed and politically sensitive, and the UN has been careful not to apportion blame for any particular spill”
In another firsthand account of the perils of political neglect and subtle support of grand style pollution in Africa using the Niger-delta belt of Nigeria as a case study, environmental analyst Jasmine Buari narrates in an article published on http://www.naiji.com in August 2016 that “as a child growing up in the gray-skied Nigerian village of Abissa in rivers state, I occasionally went to the river to swim when the river was full tide, and go pick periwinkles, set the hook to catch fishes, as well as look out for crustaceans like crabs, lobsters, and others, when the river receded. Quite significantly, the smell of crude oil floated on the surface of the water along with the tides. I was completely ignorant of what this meant, but was constantly warned not to go near an oil spill with a hurricane lantern because the environment was highly inflammable, innocently, we obeyed those instructions to the letter without knowing that it was actually the result of the damage done to our environment. A few years ago, I asked my mother who lives, and works in Abonnema, in Rivers state, Nigeria, to send some seafood to me In Colorado Springs, USA. She responded that the fishes had virtually left for elsewhere due to water pollution.” But it’s not only the fishes who have abandoned the environment; fresh air too has taken to its hills. Most recently, around the months of December through February 2017, there were reports making the rounds on Facebook from people living in this axis of the countries map, which they had woken up on a certain morning to black dusts everywhere in the environments. According to eye witnesses, there were black dusts on the road, on the tiles of people’s houses, on the vehicles left packing outside, on the roofs and almost everywhere. This reached the hands of the media who sort after answers from expects and found out that this form of environmental pollution was as a result of gas flaring by heavy industries, particularly that of oil, in the area which has been said to have destroyed the ozone layer of this belt, but that is a story for another day.
Despite serious warnings by environmental expects in the field of pollution on the adverse effects of uncontrolled drilling of oil, on aquatic life in the country, the leaders of this affected nations have surprisingly become mute even with the heavy activism around this sector by those in the civil right family. Anyone with his right sense will know that the oil sector is the most robust sector when it comes to the clash of pockets in Africa, moreover, since many of our leaders are key stakeholders in this sector, with huge sums of stolen funds from the nations commonwealth as investment, it won’t be a thing too baffling for us if they keep silent on the issue of water pollution. Ken Saro Wiwa of blessed memory—the great Sojaboi of the Niger-delta was murdered in cold blood by the legal decree of his the overzealous late dictator; Sani Abacha—grand thief of the age, for speaking up against the wanton destruction of human lives via the silent support of the government of systematic pollution by oil companies in Nigeria. Many activists still suffer in today’s world, for speaking up against the abuse of power by those in whose lots it has fallen. Notwithstanding, this won’t stop the vociferous cry for a world free from water pollution to a world filled with abundant water supply ample for every human on the planet.
In conclusion, permit me to end this essay with the words of the UN secretary general Ban KI Moon. He says. “The children who have no clean water to drink, the women who fear for their safety, the young people who have no chance to receive a decent education have a right to [be] better, and we have a responsibility to do better. All people have the right to safe drinking water, sanitation, shelter and basic services.”
Akor Emmanuel Oche is a Nigerian Poet, Critic, Essayist and Thinker. Coupled with his penchant for all things literature, he has continued to engage actively in humanitarian projects across the continent and has been a serious activist for social change with his soul reaching articles bordering on different issues bedeviling today’s world. The Essayist can be reached on akor.emmaoche@gmail.com
Amanziglobalwaterjournal– is founded , published , coordinated and moderated by Mbizo Chirasha- a wordpress blogspublisher, Climate and Water Activist/Writer, Acclaimed Poet and Creative Communities Expert. He can be contacted at amanziglobaljournal@gmail.com
is an emotive writer who weaves the tragedy and victory of the human experience into a tapestry of memorable imagery and metaphor? She speaks with honesty on the spiritual and social challenges of our time. Jambiya’s works are a must read for those accustomed to the jaded perfunctory cleverness of modern wordsmiths.
AmanziGlobalWaterJournal 