· A new report by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) states that the world will face a severe water crisis in the next decade.
· It estimates that Africa will be the worst affected by the crisis, particularly the 46 countries in sub-Saharan Africa.
A new report by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) states that the world will face a severe water crisis in the next decade. It estimates that Africa will be the worst affected by the crisis, particularly the 46 countries in sub-Saharan Africa. According to reports, 40% of the 783 million people who have very poor access to water live in sub-Saharan Africa that points out that more than 320 million people have no access to safe drinking water.
In 2018, Cape Town, South Africa attracted global attention on account of the acute water shortage focused on Day Zero, when taps, would run dry which meant that locals would have to queue up to get a daily per-person ration of water. This water crisis reportedly was due to a three-year drought. But, according to Stanford University researchers, the climate crisis aggravates droughts five to six times. It also forecasts that severe droughts could become common in south-western South Africa by the end of the 21st century. Population growth is another factor contributing to the water crisis. The population of Lagos is reported to be increasing by ten times more than New York.
The WMO report which contains input from more than 20 international organizations, development agencies and scientific institutions reports that Africa is one of the regions most affected by climate variability. It pointed out that the continent was hit by 1,695 disasters associated with weather-, water-, and climate-related events, recording 731,747 deaths and economic losses of US$ 38.5 billion.
