Four lessons African cities should learn from Cape Town’s water crisis

Always be prepared for drought

Local governments should be prepared to handle extreme weather conditions. David Olivier, a postdoctoral research fellow at Global Change Institute, said that in 2015 the city of Cape Town was allocated 60 per cent of the Western Cape’s water supply system with almost all the rest going to agriculture and livestock. But between 2015 to 2016, the drought began to take its toll on dam levels. However, the National Department of Water and Sanitation, unfortunately, did not take steps to rein-in agricultural water use.

A 2015 United Nations report into the world’s water supply said that floods and droughts “exacerbate vulnerabilities and widen social inequality”. The report further indicated that such events “disproportionately impact the poorest and the marginalised in any society”.

Therefore, governments must be readily prepared for the threat of climate change and water shortages, especially in growing, densely populated cities such as Cape Town.