THE CRITICAL ROLE THAT WATER PLAYS IN DEVELOPMENT (PART ONE)

Hello to all ambassadors and warm greetings from Cameroon. There is hardly any human activity that does not make use of water that is why I believe water is the basis for all development. The growing importance of the science of water has been ignited by humanity?s desire and pre-occupation in trying to match demand and supply of water. Water being a fundamental element of all life on earth and seems to be in short supply almost everywhere on earth.

            In most parts of the world especially were water is a critical factor in development, the dual impacts of agriculture and urbanization has permanently altered the global society. There has been a significant modification in the pattern of occurrence of water where ever there has been expansion in urbanization and irrigational agriculture.

            The critical role that water plays in development has been manifested in many parts of the world through numerous conflicts between states over water resources. About 15% of river flow is controlled by humankind demonstrating the Role Rivers play in development. It is this attempt to control rivers by various states that has contributed to numerous water related conflicts. Some authors believe that the next world war will fought over water resources.  

            We are ten years in the 21^st century and the major preoccupations are:

-          Provision of sufficient water for the growing and increasingly demanding population

-          Impact of water development including hydrological development on the environment.

-          Anticipated problems especially in the relation to the unreliability of water resources.

That is why we must advocate and be committed to sustainable and harnessing and management of water resources.

      THE CRITICAL ROLE THAT WATER PLAYS IN DEVELOPMENT PART TWO

      I visited the South West Region of Cameroon, the town of legendary hospitality with interest to know how small communities are being compounded by wide range of threat to fresh water resources such as environmental change commonly linked to the activities which people carry out on the landscape. I then realized that one of the most important aspect of water is that despite the fact that water is available everywhere, the amount of fresh portable water is grossly insufficient in these small communities of the South West Region of Cameroon. Ironically, this region has the best drainage systems in the country since it is mountainous in nature.

      I further proceeded to some interior communities where agriculture has been a failure due to poor harnessing of water resources and uncertainty in rain fall. Despite poverty, youth unemployment and lack of roads, the major problem in these communities of the South West Region of Cameroon is lack of portable water. One of this communities in Limbe manage to have one catchment area constructed the Government in the 1990?s but today human settlement around this catchment and poor management has lead to underground water contamination. This is due to close proximity of toilets to the catchment and human activities. All these have lead to ground water contamination and subsequent catchment contamination.

This situation is putting the lives of 50.000 Cameroon village inhabitants at risk. Thanks to initiatives such as Tunza Eco-generation which is representing the voices of these people and calling on the government to take action on this situation and if the government does not react on this water situation, the consequence can be devastating. I imagine an outbreak of Cholera and other water born disease of the country due to these poor sanitary conditions.