Africa Water, Sanitation & Hygiene January - February 2016 vol.11 no.1 | Page 29

Climatology

drought-resistant seed production at a community level.

Supplies could then be trucked to struggling herders.

According to Simon Langan, a researcher at non-profit
research organisation the International Water Management
Institute in Ethiopia, the crisis is systemic. “Maybe we
should never have called [the phenomemon] climate
change,” he says. “The words climate change suggest that
something happens in an orderly fashion.” In a world
shaped by progressive and even changes, adapting is
fairly easy. “But, in fact, with events such as El Niño, we
experience these huge variations, either too much rain, or
indeed unpredictable rain,” he says. “It’s this uncertainty
that unsettles people.”

Oxfam humanitarian manager Jane Cocking agrees
that building resilience in the face of a food shortage is
crucial in many ways, because crises are complex. “In this
crisis, the impact of climate extremes is also tied to the
impacts of conflict and development in general, so it’s
very difficult to disaggregate the impacts of El Niño from
other humanitarian impacts,” she says. In South Sudan, for
example, conflict keeps disrupting trade, livelihoods and
humanitarian assets, such as food stores.

Langan believes more research is needed to understand the
interaction between food crisis and water systems, and that
more should be spent on preventing rather than simply
responding to crises.
“When thinking of drought-stricken areas, the mental
picture that a lot of people have is of dry landscapes
and dead cattle, but this is not necessarily the reality,” he
says. “In many areas, water is present, but people lack the
capacity to collect and store it.”
One way to improve this capacity would be by expanding
small-scale irrigation. Farmers could use pumps to extract
water from the ground during the dry season, when extra
irrigation is needed.

Currently, Oxfam’s priority is to keep farmers on their
feet by protecting their assets — whether livestock or
crops — so that when the crisis is over they don’t have
to rebuild everything from scratch. Cocking believes that
this food crisis, despite being as severe as the one 30 years
ago, is causing less damage because it’s better managed.
“Humanitarian agencies and government have learnt from
past experience and they are getting better at preparing for
such events,” she says.
But East Africa still lacks wells and other forms of
water infrastructure, and the impacts of climate-related
extreme events and conflict highlight the need for greater

Another idea, says Langan, would be to grow fodder
in areas that remain fertile even when drought strikes.

Women and children wait for World Food Programme donations at a food
distribution centre in Gurgur near Somali region, Ethiopia
Image credit: WFP/Melese Awoke
This water borehole has been installed as part of a new government pilot project
that aims to help farmers practise irrigated agriculture in the village of Gabi in
Ethiopia’s Somali region. Around 20 of this type of borehole are being used to
water parched land in the region Image credit: WFP/Melese Awoke

understanding and research into systemic crises.
Source: SciDev.Net

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