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Climate change

Climate change includes both the global warming driven by human emissions of greenhouse gases, and the resulting large-scale shifts in weather patterns. As Climate change warms the planet, the world’s hottest geographies become more scorching. Simultaneously, clouds move farther away from the equator towards the pole by a climate-change phenomenon called Hadley Cell Expansion. This deprives equatorial regions like sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and Central America of life-giving rainwater. If global temperatures continue to rise, rainfall will increasingly become a beast of extremes: long dry spells here, dangerous floods there – and in some places, intense water shortages.Climate change is disrupting weather patterns, leading to extreme weather events, unpredictable water availability, exacerbating water scarcity and contaminating water supplies. Such impacts can drastically affect the quantity and quality of water that children need to survive. Studies by De Wit and Stankiewicz (2006) and Anthony Nyong (2005) predict that by the year 2050 the rainfall in Sub-Saharan Africa could drop by 10%, which will cause a major water shortage. This 10% decrease in precipitation would reduce drainage by 17% and the regions which are receiving 500–600 mm/year rainfall will experience a reduction by 50–30% respectively in the surface drainage. Climate change has contributed immensely to the already exacerbating water crisis situation in Africa and globally, making the World Health organization declare it as the greatest threat to global health in the 21st century.

Rapid population growth

Africa's population is the fastest growing in the world. It is expected to increase by roughly 50% over the next 18 years, growing from 1.2 billion people today to over 1.8 billion in 2035. In fact, Africa will account for nearly half of global population growth over the next two decades. There is also a simple but appreciable equation that, as population increases, so does water demand. At the same time, the water resources in African region are gradually diminishing due to the habitation in places that were previously water sources. As the population increases rapidly, there is urgent demands for improved health, quality of life, food security, and ‘lubrication’ of industrial growth, which also place severe constraints o the water available to achieve these goals.