| Chapter 1: | Water Resources Development and Management in Sub-Saharan Africa |
|
|
This is a limited free preview of this book. Please buy full access.
(HDI) that includes life expectancy, education parameters, and GDP per capita, all of which are only about half as high as in high-income countries (United Nations Development Program, 2007; Food and Agriculture Organization, 2003). Given its low level of current water development, still high potential for future development, and its extraordinarily high level of poverty, one might expect the laws and policies governing SSA's water resources to follow a different path from the global trends outlined above. Indications are, however, that this is not the case. At a transboundary level, for example, the recent decline in the water resources development agenda embodied in SSA's agreements parallels that in the rest of the world (Lautze & Giordano, 2007).
Involvement of the North
From the 1950s through the 1980s, the predominant paradigm in global water governance, at both national and international levels, was development (Conca, 2006), and this was reflected in Northern water investments in SSA. For example, the U.S. provided loans essential for the construction of the Akosombo Dam between 1963 and 1966 (Barry, Pluquet, & Andreini, 2004), and the former Soviet Union provided funds for the Aswan Dam between 1960 and 1971 (Said, 1993). More recently, France financed the Diama Dam on the Senegal-Mauritania border, and Germany financed the Manantali Dam in Mali in the early 1980s (King, 1996). In most of these cases, international development financing was consistent with the objectives stated in national or regional water policies and laws of the time. For example, an agreement was signed to develop the Zambezi's hydropower potential in 1953, Ghanaian president Nkrumah was clear about his intentions to further his country's development aims through Volta Basin development (Barry et al., 2004), and the Senegal River Development Organization (OMVS) was created to mise en valeur (develop) the basin's waters in 1972.
Over the past two decades, outside involvement in SSA's transboundary and national waters has continued. However, the emphasis of that involvement has shifted with changing global paradigms away from development and toward conservation and management. One example