This entry is going to show a practical
assessment of the water-food-energy approach in Ethiopia. This assessment has
been done by the Nexus Resource Platform and it is a very clear way to show and
understand what this nexus concept is all about. Although I will be talking
about the most important points of the report, the complete paper can be found
in the following link: Ethiopia: Nexus Country Profile
Please have a look at it if you have time
because it's a very clear piece of work. A similar assessment has been done for
other countries such as Egypt and Sudan so if you are interested in this topic
please have a look at it as well.
After spending more than 2 months researching
and writing about this cutting-edge concept in a more theoretical way, coming
across to such a clear and easy to understand paper about the practical aspect
of the Nexus was very fascinating. The article reserves one page for each
element of the Nexus and then continues by doing a rapid assessment of the
overall situation.
Water:
- Water sources: the average rainfall is 848 mm/a
but the temporal distribution is described as “highly erratic, extreme spatial
and temporal variability with rainfall variation coefficient of 0.12 to 0.97”.
- Access to improved water and sanitation is
very low overall and most of the water withdrawal comes from the agricultural
sector (93,69%).
- Water for Energy
- Most of the electricity generation
comes from hydropower plants but only 2 out of 9 dams are used for
generating electricity
- Due to the high availability of
water, the government is now interested in promoting the production of
bioenergy and “vast tracts of land are granted to foreign companies for
production and export to European countries.
- Water
for Land
- Ethiopian agriculture is highly
dependant on rainfall and only 1% of the total agricultural area is
irrigated due to a lack of technology development, therefore Ethiopia is
not able to fulfil the national food demand.
Energy
- Most of the energy production comes from waste
and biofuels and electricity production comes from hydropower plants as
mentioned above.
- Overall, the residential sector is the most
energy demanding one (93% of overall energy use)
- Energy for water: Rural areas normally lack of
electricity access and water is extracted with hand wells or petrol driven
wells. Therefore, gravity driven distribution network are installed and pumps
are not commonly used.
- Energy for land: Energy use in agriculture
represents only 0,3% of total energy consumption, which surprisingly contrasts
with the importance of the contribution of agriculture to the GDP (46%). This
is due to the low mechanisation of agriculture and the reliance on rain-fed
systems.
Land
- Agricultural activities are normally
small-scale, rain-fed and not mechanised
- Yields are very low and it is very dependant on
external food aid
- Land for water: The accessible surface area
covered by dams is 720 km² The Grand Renaissance Dam under construction shall
cover an area of 1900 km². Two of them are used for irrigation.
- Land for energy: 2 bio m2 of soil in conjunction
of 200,000 ha of forest cover are lost annually due to wide use of fuel wood in
the rural areas.
Possible solutions and overall assessment
- Water is the most worrying aspect of all. With
increasing droughts, the government has to focus on increasing water storage
for safe water drinking and sanitation.
- Increasing rural electricity access will also
help achieving both food and water security as it will improve the crop yield
and will facilitate the extraction of water for drinking and sanitation.
The following graphs have been directly taken
from the report and summarise the positive and negative aspects of the three
features of the Nexus.
Personal discussion and conclusions
Looking at Ethiopia, I feel like the government
has concentrated its efforts into hydropower to an extent that it has
completely forgotten about the other aspects that also sustain a country. For
instance, the energy security assessment rating clearly shows how the
government has spend most of its funding in building the infrastructure and
promoting hydropower and biofuels but has completely forgotten about the access
to electricity and energy in the rural areas. At the same time, it can be seen
how food security hasn't either been a priority for the government as crop
productivity and the access to markets are very low. I can’t deny that Ethiopia
has done a great job with improving grid electricity access but for me it does
not seem enough. It’s time for the government to shift its effort to guarantee
the country’s sustainability and achieve water, energy and food security.
In terms of the report, I believe that the Nexus
Resource Platform has done an excellent work in terms of adapting the
information to a very visual and easy to understand structure. However, after
explaining the current situation, I think that it should have given more
importance to the possible solutions section since it's the most challenging
one. Although I agree it is importance to reveal the current scenario, more
effort should be placed into developing solutions for the problems in the
water-food-energy nexus in Ethiopia.
