Water

More than 300 million people rely on the waters of the River Nile. The Nile river basin contains over 10 per cent of Africa’s landmass, in 11 countries: Ethiopia, Sudan, South Sudan, Egypt, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Eritrea and Kenya. Many of these countries rely almost exclusively on the Nile […]

March 21, 2018 Warning bells have been sounded by Down To Earth, the magazine that Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) helps publish, on this year’s World Water Day (today) – many of the world’s leading cities will see Cape Town-like water crisis in the not too distant future. The magazine is carrying an exclusive […]

Some water wells and streams in drier villages of north and north-eastern Uganda are drying up again. But, a number of families in these villages are not worried. For, they will no longer depend on vagaries of these water resources to meet their water needs. Now, National Water and Sewerage Corporation (NWSC) has successfully secured […]

March 9, 2018 A beer making company in Rwanda is now producing energy from wastewater organic pollutants to power its boiler equipment. The Skol Brewery has partnered with the Global Water Engineering (GWE) to turn wastewater organic pollutants into biogas for internal use while achieving high environmental benefits. Rwanda has a strong need for sustainable […]

The Executive Secretary of the Lake Chad Basin Commission (LCBC) Engr. Sanusi Abdullahi, has said there would be no solution to the shrinking of the Lake Chad that does not involve recharging the Lake with water from outside the basin. Sanusi was delivering a speech at the International Conference on Lake Chad in Nigeria at […]

The Kigali Water Ltd has received $60 million from the Emerging Africa Infrastructure Fund (EAIF) and the Africa Development Bank to build a large-scale water treatment plant on river Nyabarongo on the outskirts of Kigali. The proposed plant will increase the availability of clean, safe water in Kigali and its surroundings. The financing process, which […]

Rwanda is facing water scarcity due to rapid population growth, and inadequate investment in infrastructure in water storage, conservation and sustainable access. A study presented at the recent Nile Basin Development Forum, which brought together experts to discuss water challenges in the Nile region, shows that Rwanda’s water scarcity started in 2007 and warns that […]

For most El Molo people in Kenya, the past year has been the worst in living memory. Lake Turkana, the water body that they and their ancestors have depended on, is incapable of feeding them. This tiny tribe – with a population of less than 2000 – located on the southwestern shore of Lake Turkana, […]

It was a tough experience for birds in Tanzania’s Mara Wetland when local communities would throw stones onto them anytime to chase them from their fields, or hunt them for sale — poaching. What was worse is that, the communities were hurting the birds, but also hurting themselves, unknowingly because they were destroying biodiversity. The […]

CAPTION: A man hangs fish to dry on the western shore of Lake Turkana. Reuters/Goran Tomasevic Sean Avery, University of Leicester Ethiopia’s GIBE III hydropower dam is now operational. However, rights groups have raised concerns over the impact that it is having on downstream communities and the environment. The Conversation Africa’s Samantha Spooner asked expert […]

Journalists and water scientists in the Nile basin are rooting for innovative strategies to bridge the gap between them. This, they say, would help to promote transboundary cooperation in the Nile riparian countries, a home to 437 million people. They were speaking in Cairo, Egypt during a workshop on communicating water science for transboundary cooperation […]

The spread of an invasive alien species is neither easy to manage nor easy to reverse, threatening not only biodiversity but also economic development and human wellbeing. According to the United Nation Environmental Programme (UNEP), native to the Amazon Basin in South America, water hyacinth (water weed) has emerged as a dangerous weed in more […]