Is Water Shortage in Somali Region A Climate Crises Only or A Water Sector Issues?

COMMENTARY

?Is Water Shortage in Somali Region Climate Crises Only or A Water Sector Issues?

?The purpose of this article is to stimulate policy debate on the sustainability of the current practice of water sector development and its implication for addressing the chronic water needs in the Somali Region. It also gives examples and expert recommendations on the way forward to achieve prosperous, resilient, and developed Somali regions in the near future…

Background

In recent years, the effect of climate change has affected the globe negatively and horn Africa in particular. As a result, rain predictability, and distribution have been reduced. Recurrent droughts have affected the regions in the last few decades. Even though there is no detailed research conducted in the Somali region, few existing documents indicate no major reduction of rains from annual rainfall except a few years in which the climate is disturbed due to climatological effects in the Indian Ocean.

The Somali region has one of the lowest statics of water supply coverage in Ethiopia even though the sector has improved in the last few years. Surface and groundwater are the main sources of water supply in the region. The region has two main perineal rivers (Ganalle, & Shebelle River) and plenty of groundwater reserves. Viability, Access, and Sustainability of these natural resources are affected by many factors including hydrogeology affecting quality & quantity, management, technology selection, and many other factors. The need for water is ever-increasing and the majority of the people in urban towns depend on commercial water supply and pastoralists migrate more frequently than ever before leaving the most vulnerable communities to be supplied either by humanitarian agencies or by the government. Over 85% of the population in the region depends on pastoralism which mainly depends on rain for both water and pastor. The government strategy of diversifying the regional livelihood by introducing massive irrigation and shifting pastoralists to agro-pastoralists will further stress the existing water source and increase water demand by many folds.

The water sector development in the Somali region has not only been based on a detailed water sector capacity and gap assessment but rather used to meet immediate political gain. Currently, there is a huge imbalance between the supply and demand side of the curve. Over 75% of the critical development questions being claimed by the honorable citizen are related to water. This demand is expected to grow as villagization, urbanization, population, industrialization, and irrigable land demand more from the same sector. if the current demand of the citizen is not met, the future trial will cost millions to expand services. Different zones in the region have different types of water sources. The same design and approach will never be applicable.

The number of water supply facilities are increasing from year to year. The technology is getting sophisticated, different types of equipment used in the sector are providing fault signals, and needs higher literacy to read and troubleshoot. This will force us to modernize the management strategy instead of using the village “WASHCO” designed for a self-supply approach and operating structure that fully depend on assistance. However, it seems that the amount of money being invested in the revitalization of existing facilities increasing and there is no regional proclamation institutionalizing cost recovery from the rural water supply systems. With limited resources putting priority is the only solution. Thus, should we invest in new facilities? Create employment opportunities? and generate resources from existing systems? Or should we continue reinvesting in the same? Should we continue increasing the burden of the poor? Cause recurrent outbreak of water-borne disease? Or should we start moving the sector forward, sustainability and equitability? These and other critical questions are required to be answered by the sector leaders.

This article, therefore, provides direction and hints of key areas of focus to carry the sector forward by highlighting the top key issues to be looked at and discussed before it is too late. We can’t keep fire fighting but we should start looking at things from a different angle, develop a future plan by considering our current challenges and the effect of climate change on our water reserves in the region, innovate and try new means of sustaining our limited resources. We can’t prevent climate change but we can adopt as we advocate for global action.

CRITICAL ISSUES TO BE CONSIDERED TO IMPROVE CURRENT WATER COVERAGE IN THE REGION

I.????Improve Understanding of Potential Water Sources

Ethiopia is considered as the water tower for the horn Africa. The groundwater reserve of Ethiopia is estimated to be over 40 BCM. Over 90percent of existing water sources in the Somali region both for rural and urban populations come from these sources. This is due to the low cost associated with the development and maintenance of sources from drilled boreholes. The current abstraction scale of water in the Somali region is estimated to be slightly above 15.6 MCM[1] per annum while the need is estimated to be over 46MCM[2] without considering the SDG revised indicators.

Thus, the priority for us is to expand the understanding of our water sources' potential, further refine the existing groundwater and surface water maps. The Federal ministry of water has conducted a national basin study of both Shabelle and Ganelle Rivers but little is known about how these existing documents can inform the water sector development plan in the region. In 2014, the region has conducted a detailed water supply inventory and updated it recently even though the result is not yet analyzed. In 2009 and 2018/19, the bureau with the support of UNICEF prepared a detailed groundwater map of the region. The finding of this study has directly or indirectly informed our understanding of existing water sources in the region. We should start investing more in the same to further refine both the surface and groundwater potential of the region.

II.??Prioritize Our Needs Based on Clear, Transparent, and Equitable Criteria

Based on the improved ground and surface water maps, we should also conduct an urgent need assessment of the region by covering all woreda and zones. This assessment will look closely, at the population density, availability of water, level of technology required to avail water, and capacity of the population to pay for these services. Communities need to get feedback from the different assessments and understand how long and how much it will cost to develop a water source. It will also guide the woredas/zones to plan for low-scale and intermediate remedies to provide water for villages/kebeles within their administrative areas.

This exercise will help us understand our existing resources better, map the regional demand and prioritize towns, and villages considering many factors including population, availability of alternative water sources, capacity to effectively pay for the service, and consider before selecting type and level of technology to provide access to water. In short, the implementation of a different project needs to have a clear selection criterion that follows the regional development plan direction and priorities. We should consider past construction sustainability before authorizing actions.

III. Implement Long-Term Planning for Development

Given the fact that the region is still under development, the only livelihood is under threat and the population demand for water is ever increasing. It will not be an option to develop an annual budget breakdown as the plan for the year. The sector demands to conduct a detailed performance review in the last few decades. The result will inform the development of a long-term plan with huge resources to achieve.

In the past few years, we use to hear from regional leaders the water sector priority is the first top-five but the budget allocation hasn’t changed significantly comparing the need. The execution of the regional plan followed the pledges and visit commitment of the regional government leaders. While it is good to consider the commitment made by the regional leader, it won’t be the long-term vision we aim to achieve. We urgently need to work from a bottom-top approach and develop such a long-term development plan. Break down these plans into annual achievements and implement them with transparency, cost efficiency, and strong community participation.

The current trend wouldn’t take us anywhere and we will argue on Jigjiga water supply in the next 20 years plus. It is advisable, to have regional and national expert consultation on the water sector plans lessons learned challenges, and opportunities. Support the zones and woredas to lead a detailed assessment of their needs, and develop a 10-15 years plan. Based on this exercise, the water sector development with a SMART theory of change can be developed and presented to donors, the federal government, and private communities for funding. Without defining the elephant in the room, it will be difficult to agree whether the tail is that of an elephant or the tail of Zebra. The OWNP[3] and the Somali Region Joint Action Plan can be live examples to learn from – over-ambitious but possible to achieve!.

IV. Improve Cost Recovery and Management Of Existing Water Sources

Access to resources is constrained in most developing countries. Ethiopia's economy has been growing with double-digit in the last 10 plus years but still, poverty is the top enemy in the country. The water sector is one of the hugely underfunded sectors. This is because its development is cost-intensive and requires huge investment compared to education or other sectors. This might be the only understood by the sector expert and others might look like ways of exaggerating planning costs. Government and humanitarian agencies are trying their best to provide more support to the sector – like One WASH National Plan and R-WASH?etc.

Water is both a human rights issue and an economic commodity. It can generate millions of dollars per annum if managed well. Both urban and rural water supply systems of the Somali region strongly depend on government contribution for their operation and maintenance. This is sacking millions of dollars annually from the development of a new water supply facility. In most cases, we argue that the pro-poor communities are protected by the government subsidy in operation and maintenance. In simple calculation, a well-off family buys a truck full of water in Jigjiga town – 200lit at a cost less than 20 birr while a lower-income family has to buy the same amount of water in over 70birr/barrel. This clearly shows our development gaps are not affecting our people equally but are further aggravating the dear situation of our population at a lower-income level.

The management of urban water supply is expected to be a utility while a rural water supply system regardless of the technological complex is managed by a WASHCO[4]. This strategy has never worked in the Somali context. If a rural water supply is generating resources, it is owned by the WASHCO but a system fails it is owned by the government and sometimes it is politicized. This strategy never works and will not be a system for the future. We have to accept innovation, open to trial, and learn from our mistakes. The national government of Ethiopia understands the need to change management modalities and the Somali region should be the lead on this improvement. It will help us save money, invest in developing new systems, and create job opportunities. Jijiga TVET gradual in electromechanical and small-scale water supply field has nowhere to look for jobs but these changes of management modality will open new opportunities and save millions of dollars.

The critical issue to be considered is to improve the management system of the current water supply facilities. We have learned from neighboring regions and countries how efficient it is to manage facilities either by accountable utility or involving the private sector. We should be tired of managing and investing more resources for multi village water supply facilities including the famous Filtu Water Supply and many others in Nogob/Jarar Zones. In the Somali context applying Private, Public Partnership can have both economic value and improve service provision. Therefore, it is worth exploring applicability in detail and trying in a few locations before generalizing as the magic bullet to solve our problem. The ministry of water revised water policy supports the same approach.

V.??CLIMATE FRAGILITY:

From 2000, 2005, 2011, and 2015/16/17 and now 2021/22 droughts in the Somali region and in horn Africa, huge lessons are learned and development partners and government are strongly calling for resilience capacity development. As detailed above, we need to invest in the development of enough knowledge of our existing water resources mainly groundwater sources, and their vulnerability to climate change. For instance, we are extremely happy to get groundwater sources from chronically water insecure zones of the region but little is known scientifically about the nature of groundwater in our region. We might invest hugely in the development of groundwater sources in Jigjiga town for example. This investment might be short-lived if our groundwater recharge is far lower than the discharge.

In Doolo zone, one might observe a well being pumped over 19 hours per day to satisfy the needs of people and animals but little is known about the recharge of these sources. Science can provide a reasonable answer to our questions, Addis Abeba University can conduct a carbon test of our water and estimate the age of water being used. We can conduct regional groundwater modeling exercises to estimate our lateral and vertical recharge capacity. This can lead to developing an effective management plan allowing us to plan our scarce resources better. The same is true for our surface water sources. Million cubic meters of water is being lost through runoff during the rainy season. Investing in this runoff, the construction of dams for major towns like Jigjiga, Dhagahbour, and others can provide water with relatively good quality and enough quantity. Investing in knowledge development is paramount for the sustainable and climate-resilient water sector in the Somali region and beyond.

VI.?CAPACITY BUILDING AND KNOWLEDGE DEVELOPMENT:

Every development sector hugely depends on research, innovation, and continuous development of both human and institutional capacity. The sector has not received enough attention on this subject and this is mainly related to focus on firefighting either for droughts, failure of existing water sources, or implementation of different political commitments. The reasons for the establishment of the different specialized enterprise was to ease pressure and reduce the cost but the reverse might be true in our context.

Recently, there was a lot of effort initiated by different experts/institutions to improve groundwater knowledge in the region. These efforts have resulted in successfully drilling of wells in areas previously labeled as chronic water insecurity (Gashamo, Daror, Yoale, Harshin, Nogob region ?etc)

The bureau has installed a desalination system in different areas affected by salty water but the experience has not been documented well and the reason for failure might not be tracked. Desalination as technology is expanding fast and is proven to be the future option for potable water supply in coastal and saline groundwater areas. For example, many regions of Somalia have reported deteriorating groundwater quality and this can be associated with low recharge and higher intrusion of salty groundwater. In the Somali region, little is known as the water quality of boreholes is not tracked annually and people might only consider these sources during droughts and dry seasons.

Generally, the sector is one of the few which suffers from high staff turnover. You might see a change of leadership every two years. This affects the staff capacity, focus on common priority, and change of leadership usually comes a change of core staff of the sector. This harms performance and should be considered as change happens. Investing in staff capacity and knowledge development doesn’t require huge resources but its contribution is huge for correcting our mistakes and documenting our success for the future generation.

In addition, the private and government enterprise capacity plays a huge role in the development of the water sector. However, the efficiency of those government enterprises and their contribution to the sector is yet to be seen in scale. They might become a burden instead of an opportunity. In-depth assessment and evaluation might be the right approach to understand the gaps and plan their capacity improvements. Therefore, it will be an important step to conduct a private sector capacity assessment covering both human resources and institutional capacity. The region will have enough knowledge of how complex a plan we can implement at different stages – woreda level, regional, and country-level. This should follow the national guidance on the categorization of the different contractors.

CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATION

In short, the development of the sector can not be reached by implementing annual plans and figure pointing to each other, but it would require visionary leadership. The time is not too late, but failure to take immediate action today will lead to a huge gap in the future. Somali communities are more resilient but their capacity might be overstretched resulting in political instability and conflict. Implementation of key issues detailed in this paper requires strong leadership commitment, advocacy, and political buy-in. Therefore, experts and sector leaders need to advocate for the implementation of these critical gaps and support communities' efforts to get their rights at an affordable cost.

?By Ali Regah, is an Expert in Water Resource Management, Hydrogeologist, water treatment and water pumping with renewable energy. He has worked with many humanitarian agencies in water supply and sanitation in Ethiopia and Somalia. For any comments/suggestion, he can be reached with below email. ?

Email: [email protected]

[1] Calculated based on 500 functional borehole with average 3 lit/second

[2] Calculated based on CSA 2012 E.C population and average 20lit/person/day

[3] One WASH National Plan

[4] Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene Committee