By George Esunge Fominyen
African leaders met on 30 June to 3 July at Sharm El Schiek in Egypt for the eleventh Ordinary Session of the African Union ostensibly to discuss ways of Meeting the Millennium Development Goals on Water and Sanitation. Apart from a paragraph in the speech of Jean Ping, the chairman of the AU Commission, there was little more that was heard about the main team.
In the meantime, poor Africans in rural and urban areas continue to go without potable water and face health risks from drinking contaminated water or living in slums without pipe-borne water facilities. With the effects of a changing climate already hitting some countries, rivers are drying up and water sources are becoming even scarcer. In the Far North of Cameroon, people have to dig 50 metres now to find water for a well, where they used to dig for 20 metres.
This story shot in the Far North of Cameroon during a British High Commission sponsored project to raise awareness on the risks related to climate security, contextualizes the daily difficulties facing people in this area with regards to dwindling water resources. Isn’t it time for African leadership to start working on concrete steps to tackle the real issues of poverty like this?
That is the problem with Africa. Leaders often running away from the difficult reality of their countries to discuss issues devoid of subtance.
Posted by: Isat Feg | July 08, 2008 at 04:07 AM