According to the United Nations (UN) agency in charge of acting as the UN’s “Think Tank on Water,” while Botswana ranks among the top five most secure countries in Africa, the country has yet to achieve the highest level, or even the reasonably high ‘effective’ stages of national water security.
The United Nations University Institute on Water, Environment, and Health (UNU-INWEH) conducted the first water security assessment on the African continent this year, and places Botswana in the medium or modest category in terms of water security.
The assessment identified five levels of water security with the lowest index score being emerging (0 – 45), slight (45 – 60), modest (60 – 75), effective (75 — 90), and model (90 – 100). “Except for Egypt, all countries scored below 70. Only 13 of 54 countries were found to have a “modest” level of water security,” states part of the report.
Additionally, the report states that “Egypt, Botswana, Gabon, Mauritius and Tunisia make the top five most water-secure countries in Africa at present, yet with only modest absolute levels of water security achieved. Somalia, Chad and Niger appear to be the least water secure”.
The Canada-based Institute notes that although Botswana makes up the top five most water-secure countries in Africa at present with a score of 69, the country is one of the most water-dependent countries on the African continent, with a dependency ratio of over 80%.
“Egypt stands out as the most water-dependent country on the African continent, with a dependency ratio of over 98%. However, there are five other countries with over 80% levels of water dependency on their neighbours: Mauritania, Niger, Sudan, Botswana, and Namibia,” states the report.
The UN’s concept of water security ranks countries according various factors such as access to drinking water, access to sanitation, hygiene and health, water availability, efficiency of water use, water infrastructure, water quality, water governance, and water disaster risks.
Botswana had missing data on some indicators such as Sub-indicator 3.1 which deals with percentage of population using basic hand washing facilities with soap and water at home.
“For most countries with missing data in certain years (Morocco, Libya, Cape Verde, Gabon, Djibouti, Seychelles, Mauritius, Eritrea, South Sudan, and Botswana), the gaps were filled with an average value calculated from countries within a similar Gross National Income (GNI) category for that year,” states the report.
For Indicator 1 which deals with percentage of population using at least basic drinking-water services, the report highlights that Botswana is a high performer. “At the country level, Egypt, Libya, and Mauritius performed strongly with 99%, followed by Tunisia (98%), Seychelles (97%), Algeria and South Africa (94%), and Botswana (92%),” states the report.
While the research is limited by poor statistics in some areas, it presents some tentative but clear conclusions that overall levels of water security in Africa are low. “Only 13 of 54 countries reached ‘modest’ levels of water security in recent years and over a third have the lowest levels of water security under even a reasonably generous lowest threshold score of 45 adopted in this assessment,” states the report.
A previous report which was produced by the World Resource Institute highlighted that Botswana would suffer the worst water shortages between 2020 and 2040 due to unprecedented levels of pressure on their industrial, domestic and agricultural sectors.
“Extremely high water stress creates an environment in which companies, farms and residents are highly dependent on limited amounts of water and vulnerable to the slightest change in supply. Such situations severely threaten national water security and economic growth,” read part of the report.
