1/3 Africans to suffer from water shortage by 2030: ICID chief

CAIRO - 21 October 2019: More than one-third of the population in Africa will greatly suffer from water shortage by 2030, said Chairperson of the International Committee on Irrigation and Drainage (ICID) Felix Reinders.

This came in Reinders' speech at the second edition of the Cairo Water Week Forum (CWW) 2019, which kicked off on Sunday.

"More than 70 percent of surface and underground water is used for the agricultural sector," Reinders said, adding that water production for agriculture should increase to 95 percent by 2030 to meet population demands.

Reinders clarified that 97 percent of water comes from seas and oceans, while freshwater that people only use forms 1 percent, adding that this matter poses a serious danger especially with the increasing population.

According to UN data in 2017, it is expected that the world population could reach 9.8 billion in 2050 from 7.3 billion people nowadays.

He continued that modern irrigation methods, such as drip irrigation, are imperative to achieve better water productivity and increase the production of agricultural crops to reach the goals of sustainable development in 2050.

The president of the ICID referred to Egypt’s strategy adopting modern irrigation techniques, praising the forum, which comes under the auspices of President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi.

Reinders’ remarks came during the forum's first session titled “Achieving SDGs under Water Scarcity” at the five-day forum. The session tackled the following aspects according to the forum’s official website:

• Promoting efficiency in domestic, agricultural and industrial water use
• Mitigating water quality degradation and pollution clean up
• Coping with water scarcity to achieve food security
• Water accounting for optimum water management
• Making clean water and safe sanitation accessible and affordable
• Interlinkages between water, energy, food and environment
• Managing water to alleviate poverty and hunger
• Progress towards achieving Goal 6 of the SDGs
• Public-private partnership (ppp) in water management
The 2019 round of the CWW comes under the theme “Responding to Water Scarcity”. Other sub-sessions will be held on Research and Innovation in facing water scarcity; non-conventional water resource use; Cooperation in Water Sector; and Climate Change Impacts, Mitigation, and Adaptation.

The first edition of the CWW convened in October 2018 under the auspices of President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi to increase the public awareness of water rationalization for sustainable development amid a state of water shortage.