ScholarWorks@숙명여자대학교

초록

This study purports to offer a comprehensive analysis of water crises in Africa in an environment with quickly changing policies. The paper is organized by five large sections. The first part presents a brief account of of the assessments of past and present statuses and trends of water conflicts in the world. Next, the meaning and importance of water within the African continent is introduced with a quick recap of the relevant history. This is followed by an analysis on typologies of water-related conflicts in Africa which leads into the last two chapters that discuss implications and ideas for further action to minimize the risks. The cases and analytic outputs demonstrate two points. Firstly even in a very difficult political context, inter-state violent water wars are unlikely in Africa. However, water conflicts at intra-state level are emerging to be quite time sensitive issues in need of prompt response in order to avoid socio-political unrest within the major part of the continent. Therefore, the most pressing questions today are not in regards to not if and when the next war in Africa will be around water, but the mechanisms around the escalating risks of water conflicts on the sub-state level and our future directions in efforts to minimize the risks with proper approaches.

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