Concluding Thoughts

Hello readers!

I filmed a YouTube video summarising my concluding thoughts. I hope you enjoy watching.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4nyoPODikk

Before writing my first post, I thought I knew a lot about the continent of Africa. However, now looking back, I have learnt so much and I have managed to bust some myths along the way! For example, there are many myths surrounding GM crops. Some of the myths are true, where GM crops are indeed sterilised in order to protect seed piracy. I have learned a lot about the overall situation in Africa, the differences between economic and physical water scarcity and the impacts of various irrigation schemes. It was also tough to write about some emotional topics such as the famine in South Sudan. But it is an extremely important example to highlight how vulnerable food security can be. 

How can we prevent such tragedies in the future? To a certain extent, all of the topics mentioned in my blog posts could hold the answer. Large scale irrigation schemes along with smaller local irrigation initiatives and drought-resistant GM food to use less of this irrigated water can all work. But there is no one size fits all solution. Each country’s situation must be assessed individually and what has worked in one country may not work in another. But even on a more local scale, different river basins and catchment areas will have different characteristics and populations to tackle, including transboundary issues as well, highlighted with Ethiopia and Egypt with the construction of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam.

One thing is generally agreed: climate change will intensify. Therefore, difficult decisions need to be made quickly as millions of lives could be lost before adaptation takes place. Mitigation could slow down the effects, but African countries cannot be complacent.

African nations also need to learn from mistakes which were made in the past. Large scale irrigation schemes have had some serious failures relating to poor management and maintenance for example but these problems could have been prevented. I am hopeful that with increased collaboration, cooperation and data sharing between African nations that improvements can be made and mistakes will not be repeated.

Throughout the course of this blog, I have shown the myriad of ways in which water and food are interlinked, some of which you might not have thought about before. I hope you have thoroughly enjoyed your read.

Yours sincerely,

Droughts and Floods