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Calming conflict through groundwater resilience

Calming conflict

through groundwater

resilience

gbal Salah, a hydrologist at IGAD, Within this challenging environment, for 25 years in Sudan’s Ministry of
I
is doing her part to minimize conflict the World Bank launched GW4R, a Water Resources and Irrigation as a
in the borderlands of the HoA by working US$385 million regional program which, senior engineer and head of the
with CIWA on its Untapping Resilience: along with CIWA’s Untapping Resilience, modeling section before moving to
Groundwater Management and Learning is strengthening the ability of IGAD and Nairobi three years ago to join the staff
in the Horn of Africa’s Borderlands communities to cope with, and adapt of the IGAD Climate Prediction and
initiative and the related World Bank to, climatic shocks and enhancing Application Center.
GW4R program. IGAD’s capacity to promote regional
cooperation on WRM and She has been a key IGAD hydrologist
“A major source of conflict is water,” development. Supported activities will working with the World Bank and CIWA
she says. draw on and align with IGAD’s Gender on the two groundwater projects.
Equality Strategy 2023-2030, which

The borderlands are hotspots for includes the priority of increasing Salah is leading a joint regional study
discord, fragility, and insecurity for many women’s participation in sustainable on the recharge of groundwater
reasons, including competition for water management of natural resources, related to climate change. In an arid
and grazing land, poverty, ethnic resilience building, and food and region with little rainfall, it is vital not to
tensions, and conflict between armed nutrition security. deplete the important water resource.
groups or against the government. After determining the baseline of
Sustainable access to, and management While increased water security can groundwater storage in the aquifer, the
of, groundwater resources can help help address drivers of migration and project will then monitor the recharge
conflict in the borderlands, there is
address some of these drivers of much to learn about groundwater’s to establish an appropriate amount of
fragility and conflict, especially frequent potential for building climate resilience, yearly water abstraction. The project
water-related communal disputes. and that is precisely what Untapping will also lead to the development of an
Resilience’s learning agenda is doing. Aquifer Management Plan and
The ravages of climate change have Decision Support System to inform the
heightened tensions and clashes. The development and implementation of
Horn of Africa suffered a historic A long journey toward investments related to aquifer water to
drought for five consecutive seasons cooperative transboundary benefit the borderland communities.
from 2021 to early 2023 that was waters management
followed by torrential rains and flash Groundwater for Resilience, having
floods. Millions of people are still facing orn and raised in Sudan, Salah, 53, completed a feasibility study of the Merti
B
food insecurity in the aftermath of trained as a civil engineer at the Aquifer with CIWA’s support, is now
these disasters, which has led families University of Khartoum and earned her studying the Dawa Aquifer, shared by
to relocate to find food, water, and master’s degree in hydrology from the Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somalia; the Shebele
pastures for their animals, increasing University of Galway and a Ph.D. in Aquifer, shared by Somalia and Ethiopia;
the potential for conflict with host water resources from University and the Northern Basement Aquifer,
communities. College in Dublin, Ireland. She worked shared by Kenya and Ethiopia.

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