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ZIMBABWE: A Long Dry Season

Ignatius Banda

MBERENGWA, Zimbabwe, Sep 9 2010 (IPS) - Headmaster Njabulo Mpofu has weathered long dry spells before, but the water troubles affecting his school in the arid Midlands region of Zimbabwe are severe.

Experts say the water table is receding in the Midlands Province, with groundwater disappearing deeper into the earth, threatening the lives of both humans and livestock.

This is where the devastating 1990s drought saw skeletal cattle roaming the scorched earth in search of water, while some villagers fled to the cities.

The continuing water scarcity, Mpofu says, has forced school children to invest time in fetching water instead of attending classes, with villagers also devoting more and more of their day to looking for water from new sources further from their homes.

Mberengwa is one of many communities in rural Zimbabwe that is feeling the impact of low rainfall in a country where the supply of clean water to both rural and urban populations remains a huge challenge.

According to a 2004 MDG assessment, access to clean and safe drinking water in Zimbabwe’s rural areas declined from 75 percent in 1999 to 68 percent in 2003.

While many in rural areas have long relied on groundwater – boreholes are a familiar part of the infrastructure for schools like Mpofu’s – it is becoming increasingly difficult to draw on this vital resource amid challenges of both poor rainfall and poor groundwater exploration.

Even though millions across the region rely on groundwater, the Southern African Development Community’s Water Division says there is generally poor understanding in communities of how to manage this hidden resource.

SADC’S Groundwater and Drought Management Project conducted a baseline survey in 2008 addressing groundwater issues in member states. It found that despite the acknowledged potential of groundwater use to improve rural water supply, its invisibility leads to a lack of sound decisions and resource allocation that could lead to its improved use, development and management.

Sobona Mtisi, a researcher officer with the UK’s Overseas Development Institute (ODI) says what has made it difficult to harness groundwater in the arid Midlands region and other parts of Zimbabwe is that this resource is not as readily available as previously thought.

There is growing recognition of falling water table levels caused by reduced groundwater recharge from rainfall, Mtisi told IPS, but groundwater remains a practical option – where underground geology permits: “Groundwater can be harnessed from only 25 percent of the surface area in Zimbabwe as the other 75 percent is composed of hard rocks which make it difficult to extract ground water,” he said.

Mtisi however added that rural water woes like that affecting headmaster Mpofu’s school and surrounding villages can be adequately addressed through clear policies that seek to provide long term solutions.

“Putting in place an effective policy and institutional framework that promotes equitable access to water for different users to enhance long term access to water,” Mtisi said. “[The] provision of low-cost water supply technology could enable people living in arid and semi-arid areas to harness water to points where they need it.”

For Mpofu’s rural school, life could be set to get even tougher with recent projections by the country’s meteorological department that this could yet be another drought year.

It is only when schools are closed for the term when pupils get a respite from their water fetching errands, teachers here say.

The drought threatens big urban centres as well. The Bulawayo municipality last month reported that the city’s supply dams were dangerously low because of poor rainfall, despite previous projections that the last rains had seen inflows enough to last the city for another three years.

In the past, acute water shortages have forced schools to close amid fears of waterborne diseases like cholera.

Mberengwa villagers say they have been appealing for a dam to be built as a long term solution.

“It is painful for us when there are rains but all is lost to run-off when it could be saved by the dam,” said villager Titus Mguni.

“Our water problems are as old as the hills but we survive all the same.”

But dams demand money, and in a country where many development projects have been stalled because of lack of funds, this could mean the underground water will not be harnessed for use during dry years anytime soon.

Meanwhile, in the quiet Mberengwa hills desperate schools and villages continue their search for oases of hope.

“The right to water for poor people should be enshrined in the country’s Water Act, to ensure that the State makes it a priority to provide water to poor people,” Mtisi said.