Climate Change and Increasing Floods in Africa: Implications for Africa’s Development
By Monique Theron (1)
The African continent has experienced severe flooding in the few past months, due to heavy torrential rains which started in July of 2007. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) estimates that the number of floods on the continent that require relief aid have increased eight-fold since 2004. The floods that Africa has been experiencing this year have been described as the worst in three decades. The importance of the issue has been echoed in the debate on climate change which has dominated the annual General Debate at the United Nations General Assembly from 25 September to 3 October. The recent floods in Africa reflect the challenges of climate change. Experts believe that the recent floods have been caused by the La Nina weather pattern in the Pacific Ocean - a phenomenon during which oceans cool down faster, due to extremes in temperatures caused by global warming, and causing the rainy season to come earlier. The resultant effects have seen people having to deal with floods that are more extreme than usual. In addition, deforestation has also been blamed, such as in the case of Rwanda, where the destruction of the Gishwati forest has been charged as the reason for the heavy rains in that region.
At least 20 countries have been affected by the floods. These countries include Algeria, Benin, Burkina Faso, Cote d’Ivoire, Ethiopia, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Kenya, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Sudan, Togo and Uganda. By the end of September 2007 reports estimated that approximately 300 people in 20 countries had died in floods during a period of two months, noting that the inaccessibility of the affected areas has made it difficult to accurately access the death toll. In Togo, 23 deaths have been reported, in Nigeria 64, in Uganda 20 and in Burkina Faso 33 deaths have been recorded, to name statistics in just a few of the affected countries.
Algerian authorities have reported that the floods in their country have caused approximately US$ 30 million in damages to infrastructure and to the economy in general. The United Nations estimates that up to 625,000 people need of emergency aid in Sudan alone, following heavy flooding. In Uganda’s eastern regions at least 400,000 people are in need of assistance, while in Mauritania, approximately 470,000 people are suffering from food insecurity, due to the floods.
Implications for Africa’s Development
Flooding, especially floods as severe as Africa has seen in this year, has several socio-economic and political implications, which cause a wide range of complex issues in every sphere of African societies. Critical to understanding these implications, which both Governments and humanitarian organisation will have to deal with, is the fact that there are not only short-term, but also long-term factors to consider. Some of the immediate consequences include the displacement of people, the destruction of infrastructure such as houses and roads, damage to farms and crops and a loss of cattle and livestock.
The destruction of roads and other infrastructure delays ongoing development initiatives and political processes, such as disarmament initiatives in countries recovering from conflict as well as refugees returning home. In Cote d’Ivoire, for example, an operation which provides identity papers to undocumented Ivorians has been experiencing severe difficulties, due to flooded roads and bridges in the Northern part of the country. This documentation process is an indispensable part of the Ivorian peace process, since it aims to rectify the exclusion of, and discrimination against certain communities. The impassable roads have made it impossible for the legal teams to reach the communities which they should furnish identity papers to.
The immense damage to farms, crops and livestock causes long-term food insecurity. The flooding occurred very close to harvest time making the loss even greater, since farmers did not have much food stored from the previous harvesting season. In some cases, the flooding was preceded by droughts, which placed even more pressure on agricultural production systems. In Burkina Faso 144,000 metric tonnes of crops were destroyed, leading to the doubling of the prices of all staples. The United Nations Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) predict that the food security emergency in some areas will extend to next year.
Flooding also causes the loss of soil fertility, which will lessen future harvests. The non-governmental organisation, Action Aid has warned that the flood crisis has caused the prices of fuel and basic food supplies to increase. African countries, whose economies are particularly reliant on agricultural exports, will also suffer losses in trade with an adverse effect on their economies. The International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predicts that in the Sahelian region of Africa, climate change will cause a reduction in the length of the growing season, where harvest yields could be reduced up to 50% by 2020.
In the long term, affected areas will also have to deal with the spread of infections and water-borne diseases, cholera, dysentery and diarrhoea, which will increase the need for safe drinking water and the provision of water purification tablets. In Sudan, cholera outbreaks have already caused the death of 68 people in the aftermath of the floods.
The displacement of people and damage to infrastructure disrupts African societies in their development efforts and will impact on the achievement of almost every Millennium Development Goal; for example, damage to schools in Uganda left at least 100,000 children out of class.
Relief
Response to the flood emergency has been slow, especially from the Governments of the affected countries who often do not have contingency plans and mechanisms in place to deal with such catastrophes. The destruction of roads and infrastructure causes difficulties for authorities and relief organisations to obtain information on the situation and to access flooded areas, which makes planning for the management of disaster areas and situations, increasingly difficult. It has also delayed the delivery of aid.
In the beginning of October, the United Nations’ Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) had allocated US$ 3.7 million to relief efforts in Mali, Ghana and Togo to assist people who have been affected by the floods. However, this amount is estimated to facilitate relief operations and to provide vital aid to the most vulnerable for a period of only three months. By the end of October, the United Nations appealed for a further US$ 5.4 million to assist 93,000 people in Burkina Faso. The FAO pledged to use all its resources to assist countries affected by the floods, at a cost of approximately US$ 12 million.
Emergency and relief food supplies will have to sustain the affected people until the regions are able to regenerate themselves, which is likely only to happen by the time of the next harvest. The impeding food insecurity will also have an impact on the already existing problem of malnutrition, in many of the countries affected by the floods. According to the World Food Program (WFP) chronic malnutrition amongst the children in the Northern regions of Ghana ranges from 34% to 48%, where the statistics could worsen in the aftermath of the floods. In countries like Uganda where there is a dependency on hydro-electric power, droughts in the past have resulted in consistent power black-outs. With the coming of the rains in excess, authorities are not prepared to handle the resource effectively.
The disastrous floods in these African countries have reaffirmed the necessity for policy makers operating in all sectors of African societies to incorporate environmental management into all aspects of their planning. It is especially important to take climate change into account in development planning.
(1) Monique Theron is a Great Lakes/Central Africa & West Africa Researcher in Consultancy Africa Intelligence’s Africa Watch Unit. She is also a lecturer in the Department of Political Sciences, University of South Africa.
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
| Consultancy Africa Intelligence - Africa Watch Newsletter - November 2007.pdf | 96.91 KB |