Water, Politics, Conflict in North West Africa

“Control of water is inevitably control of life and livelihood” (Ward, 1997) Water is a metaphor for social, economic and political relations within society. It can be taken as a barometer for the sharing of identity and resources between power dichotomies. Water being fundamentally at the heart of sustaining any life form facilitates its role in power relations; those with control over water have control over social life. Strang ( 2004 ) posits that where a state possesses jurisdiction over water infrastructures, the peak of disenfranchisement between state and society can be found. Throughout the Anthropocene in pre-developed society (pre-developed in this sense relating to modern European notions of development) women possess authority and responsibility for the collection of water and the materiality of water engenders their role as life bearers. Where technological advancement began to assume responsibility for water collection, the intimate relation between the female conc...

In the last blog we looked at the role of the government in water development, specifically through the case study of the Sidi Abdellah Dam in Morocco. The topic of water privatisation was briefly touched on; in Morocco although water is state-run, the construction of water infrastructure projects are contracted out to private companies. In this (and any water development endeavour) the effectiveness in either both or one of governmental and private corporations involvement is questionable. One example in the case of the Sidi Abdellah Dam was the bankruptcy of construction company EMT in 2013, causing the dams’ construction to be halted until new contracts could be signed to SGMT.  During the last 30 years, African development policy has seen a shift towards the privatisation of water management and development. The shift came as a reaction to the widespread distrust and dissatisfaction with highly centralised governments. Initially the focus was on democratic decentralis...