As one of the activities under the ACE-Water project, the Water and Marine Resources Unit of the Institute on Sustainable Resources commissioned a review of available information to prepare a report on the Development Priorities of the Water Sector in Africa placed in the context of Agri-Energy sectors. The requirement was to analyse both the information gathered by the European Commission Joint Research Centre; and information from strategic documents of the project partner institutions and organisations. This report synthesises the development priorities of the water sector in Africa within the context of the express plans for productive use of water in the sectors of energy and agriculture. They are drawn from a review of the following policy, planning and programme documents for assuring water, food, energy and ecosystems security in Africa. i) the African Union agenda 2063: “the Africa we want”; ii) the Africa water vision 2025 and framework for action; iii) reports from the African Water and Sanitation Sector Monitoring and Reporting (WASSMO) System; iv) the Africa water investment programme; v) the comprehensive Africa agriculture development programme (CAADP); vi) the programme for infrastructure development in Africa (PIDA); vii) the water, climate and development programme (WACDEP); viii)the African water resources management priority action programme 2016 - 2025 (WRM-PAP); ix) the AMCOW strategy 2018 – 2030; and, x) various decisions and declarations of the policy organs of the African Union and the African Ministers’ Council on Water (AMCOW). The key emerging priorities from the analysis can be summarised as follows: i) Promoting a new narrative on water that recognises the full potential of water in the economy to further Africa’s future development needs. The new narrative should foster an appreciation of the vitality of water in economic growth; job creation; and industrialsation. ii) Strengthening the business case for water investments, as well as raising the profile of water in national and regional development in Africa. The economies of many countries in Africa are extremely vulnerable to climate variability and climate change as they are largely based on natural resources (water, land, energy, forests/ecosystems). Lack of investments to enhance human and institutional capacities; build infrastructure; and improve information systems to support water management exacerbate the difficulties. To overcome these challenges – and achieve the SDGs – it is imperative for governments, societies and the private sector to fully embrace the concept of environmental security. A paradigm shift in the approach to developing, utilising and managing Africa’s water and related resources is urgently required. iii) Water infrastructure development should be advocated for and promoted as a means to provide a service – which is water – to the economy in order to enable growth and development to happen. Water sector interventions, especially for such resource management functions as water storage and flood control, should not be designed and marketed from the perspective of ‘water sector development’. Rather, the approach to packaging them for investment should be centred on their eventual utility – from an economic perspective – in terms of providing water for food and energy production. This should be extended to the opportunities for employment and wealth creation: not to mention peace, social security and political stability.
Strategies to improve the investment outlook for water and related resources development will also benefit from the application of the High Level Panel on Water (HLPW)1 principles for valuing water. The principles provide a guideline for determining the real value of proposed investments; the associated costs; and the benefits that can be expected. In essence, they serve the purpose of improving the appreciation of the economics of water in a country, river basin or region. The application of the principles – together with targeted interventions to catalyse change – holds promise for delivering sustainable solutions for assuring water for energy, food and environmental security in Africa. v) Application of the Water-Energy-Food-and-Ecosystems nexus approach to promote and facilitate investment led transboundary management and governance of water and environmental resources. The aim is to consolidate and capitalise on the achievements to-date of implementing the principles of Integrated Water Resources Management. It is thus important to revitalise implementation of the following ongoing initiatives: a. establishing economic accounting for water as a discipline to, among others, improve the financing and investment outlook for water resources management in Africa; b. improving national-level capacities for collecting complete and reliable hydro-meteorological and piezometrical data in all of Africa’s 64 shared river basins; c. applying nexus perspective solutions to assure water, food and energy security in Africa; d. improving agricultural water management; e. implementing the PIDA priority transboundary water and energy projects; f. enhancing use of wastewater and sludge, as appropriate and acceptable, for nutrient recovery in agriculture and bio-gas energy production; g. standardising regulatory frameworks for agricultural water management across Africa; h. developing and adopting legal, policy and institutional frameworks for the collection and treatment of wastewater to a minimum water quality standard before discharge into transboundary water courses and aquifers; and, i. supporting Member States, R/LBOs and RECs to conduct water resources assessments as well as supporting them to monitor and manage groundwater use.