A nexus assessment of water, energy and food security in Ethiopia

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.