The average annual availability of water resources per year and per capita in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region will fall below the threshold of "absolute scarcity of 500 cubic meters" by 2030, the World Bank (WB) revealed in a report published Thursday.
The countries of this region, including Tunisia, are exposed to an "unprecedented" water shortage which will become "more acute" as the population increases, according to the report titled "The Economics of Water Scarcity in MENA: Institutional Solutions".
According to the WB, by the end of this decade, the amount of water available per capita annually will fall below the absolute water scarcity threshold of 500 cubic meters per person, per year. It also estimates that by 2050, an additional 25 billion cubic meters of water a year will be needed to meet the region's needs. That is equivalent to building 65 desalination plants the size of Ras Al Khair plant in Saudi Arabia, which is currently the largest in the world.
//Delegate decision-making to representative administrations at the local level
To address water stress, the report recommends that countries in the region no longer rely on a strategy of investment in water infrastructure (dams, desalination plants, etc.) to increase water supply, without adequately addressing the critical issues of efficiency and governance.
The same source states that half of the water utilities reported that more than 30% of the water produced is not billed to customers due to leaky pipes, inefficient water meters and illegal connections.
The report, therefore, highlights the need for institutional reforms to finance and maintain this infrastructure and to regulate demand. They propose that professional water utilities and national technical bodies, on the one hand, and local governments, on the other, be given "greater autonomy and strategic powers" to manage the various aspects of water services and allocation.
Existing institutions that manage resource allocation remain "highly centralised and technocratic", which limits their ability to make trade-offs in water use at the local level.
These reforms are "necessary" to increase autonomy and decentralisation of decisions regarding water management and service delivery, and to strengthen the legitimacy of water pricing and regulation.
To achieve these reforms, the World Bank stresses the importance of better communication with citizens on water scarcity and national water strategies.
In this respect, the WB mentions the example of Brazil and South Africa, which have used an awareness campaign to reduce water consumption. In Cape Town, for example, municipal authorities shared a "water dashboard", which provided weekly information on total water consumption in the city as it approached "day zero" (the point at which water resources should be completely exhausted).
Such transparency by a locally elected representative city government persuaded residents of the urgency and made them more likely to comply with restrictions.
In sum, these institutional reforms could help governments to renegotiate the social contract with the people of MENA, the same source argues.
In sum, these institutional reforms are likely to help governments renegotiate the social contract with the people of the MENA region, the same source argues.
"Rather than setting water tariffs and regulating water use through vertical directives, delegating more authority to technical water resource management agencies, utilities, and local communities could enhance the legitimacy of the state and confidence in its ability to manage water scarcity," the WB concludes.
Source: Agence Tunis Afrique Presse