OPINION

Africa's man-made water crisis

News, Asit K. Biswas and Cecilia Tortajada, Published on 22/02/2018

» About a decade ago, at a meeting of South African mayors convened by Lindiwe Hendricks, South Africa's then-minister of water and environmental affairs, we predicted that an unprecedented water crisis would hit one of the country's main cities within 15 years, unless water-management practices were improved significantly. That prediction has now come true, with Cape Town facing a shutdown of its piped water network. The question now is whether African leaders will allow our other projection -- that, within the next 25-30 years, many more of the continent's cities will be facing similar crises -- to materialise.