6. Concluding Thoughts: A Glass Half Full

Overall, this blog series represents a personal and academic endeavour to engage more critically with water, development and politics in Africa. Coming in rather blind, I first sought to gain a fundamental understanding of issues of representation surrounding water in Africa by examining media portrayals and the use of indicators to measure water scarcity. Then, the commencement of COP27 inspired reflections on the global forces affecting water and development in Africa; thereafter I zoomed into the local scale by examining the management of water supplies. While I have learnt a lot from researching and writing these posts, I am aware that the wealth of topics to explore is perhaps as abundant as water itself (admittedly not the best metaphor, given how controversial this may be) and that I have merely scratched the tip of the iceberg. Writing another 100 blog posts would not get me anywhere near fully understanding the complexities of water and politics in Africa. 

Nevertheless, here are some of my key takeaways: 

1. Water is indeed always political. While planning the content of the posts, I did not intentionally look out for ways to incorporate politics, but the direction of my writing somehow always steered towards the political. After all, any form of human intervention in the hydrological cycle can be seen as an act of power and control (Mollinga 2008). 

2. Colonial legacies subsist to this day. They manifest in all sorts of ways ranging from the rejection of privatisation to regional inequalities, and their impact must not be ignored. 

3. Decisions cannot be divorced from the geographical, social, economic and political contexts they are supposed to unfold in. Africa is not a homogenous continent (Wainaina 2005) and the myriad of factors that are unique to each case means that there is no one-size-fits-all solution. 

There is certainly no straightforward way to solve the problems and debates surrounding water and development, especially since they hold implications and are intertwined with so many other issues such as food security, energy, gender equality and climate change. 

At the end of the day, I think I would like to see the glass half full. After all, we are all just pushing for the change that we wish to see, be it the academics and African diplomats advocating for climate justice at COP27, or the local communities protesting against privatisation in Lagos. Rounding back to the YouTube video in my introductory post, I believe that even those like volunteer Lilly (in spite of her appalling ignorance and condescension) are able to contribute in their own ways. It is thus my hope that all these individual efforts to solve part of the equation can eventually be reconciled into collective attempts to mitigate larger issues. 

This marks the end of my blogging journey, but not my learning one.  With the framework this module has given me, I endeavour to continue engaging with issues surrounding water and development in Africa,  and maybe make my own contribution someday. 

Thank you for reading!