In addition, urbanisation, economic growth, poverty reduction and changing life styles towards more affluent and resource intensive societies will all impact water security in addition to energy and food production, which as you know also depend on water supply.
This is the reason why many of the discussion and advocacy work we undertook leading on to the adoption of the SDGs and the Paris Agreement on Climate Change were focussed on seek the attention and support of international development partners to commit resources and support ongoing initiatives aimed at operationalizing the water-energy nexus perspective into concrete actions for the post-2015 development agenda.
Many still believe it is too early to say climate change is directly responsible for the current water crisis in Cape Town but almost every water expert I know agrees it is largely a supply-side problem due to weather extremes, especially the recurrent droughts that have persisted in the region in the last couple of years, coupled of course with increase in demand from population growth and economic development.
When the water security challenge is predominantly a supply-side problem, there is a limit to how far you can go with demand-side management interventions especially if you focus mainly on behaviour change to reduce demand.
What is your vision for the water sector in Africa?
I planned and moderated several high-level discussions involving very senior representatives of international organizations, ambassadors/permanent representatives on the cross-cutting nature of various international development themes, including the SDGs on water, energy, climate change and ecosystems.
Yes, for example, research and analytical work on IIASA’s flagship research initiative on global water security was particularly exciting.
WFaS considers a suite of possible future scenarios and how global transformations, e.g. population growth, urbanization, climate change, technological innovations and even socioeconomic factors would impact global water security at the nexus of water, food and energy security.
Energy costs can reach 60 percent of total operating costs of utilities and this is expected to increase in the coming years due to population growth, improvements in access to safe drinking water and stiffer regulations on water quality standards.
The world in which we live is changing.