#1 Introduction: Representation and Focus

I begin with giving my thoughts on representations of Africa – ironically, having just committed a representation sin myself – and then move on to my particular interest in development.

 
Work that “does Africa” inevitably runs into conceptual problems. Firstly, because Western discourse has tended to wantonly generate imaginaries of Africa, an entire continent, with disregard for specificity. As a geographer, I feel a particular responsibility to do justice to specificity. As such, I’m going to focus this blog on the horn of Africa, specifically the Nile River Basin, and will avoid generalising about Africa (unless, of course, I really do mean Africa). 
 
Second, work involving the developing world often meets with armchair activism and performative allyship. That is, we engage with issues like development in Africa with a very particular approach. This approach is a pernicious version of performativity: we identify ourselves within a “correct” morality instead of actually intending the action and mostly in the hope of recognition (virtue signalling). As Binyavanga Wainaina (2019) aptly put it, this performative allyship ‘eas[es] your guilt with the empty advocacy of keyboard warrioring’. More often than not, such advocacy results in empty sentiments, a longing for public recognition of one’s moral constitution and little advocacy really “done”. 
 
Let’s not do that.
 
Instead, let's focus on how we can engage with development issues and be honest about our participation, involvement and interests. My interest is in politics, and given this topic is about water, my primary interest will be in hydropolitics and transboundary issues. In keeping with specificity, I’ll keep my focus primarily on eastern Africa because of the multitude of transboundary issues the Nile Basin has created. To get a feel for the scale of the Nile Basin – housing the longest river in the world – see Figure 1:

Figure 1. The Nile River Basin with major construction projects highlighted along its course. Source: Allan et al. 2019.

Figure 1 tells us many stories about the Nile Basin. For now, I’ll focus on just two aspects. The first and most striking is the scale. The river Nile spans 11 countries, is 6,700km long, covers 1/10^th of Africa’s (yes, intended) surface and provides water to 100 million people (Allan et al. 2019). This touches on transboundary politics, as no individual state can claim sole access to the Nile. Second, look at how little of the Nile Basin is shaded light green, indicating ‘protected areas’. 

 
The nature of political cooperation in the basin is not straightforward. 11 countries have some level of riparian right to the Nile's resources. Cooperation is essential to meet water, food and energy security and to combat increasing water stress from climate change. There is also a strong international influence, with, for example, the German government providing 3.5 million Euros and training states in “hydro diplomacy” (Nile Basin Initiative 2020). Such support from external finance has allowed the NBI to move forward with various water development projects. However, the colonial history of the Basin has often agitated political cooperation. 
 
Allan et al. (2019) generated two infographics showing the degree of current economic and political connections between states in the region: see Figure 2. This shows that while most countries in eastern Africa cooperate to some degree, there is great variability in trade ('A') and interstate contracts ('B'). More so, that there are three countries highlighted that ‘act individually’ in many respects. While this is an oversimplification of the political activities in the region, it does at least shed some light on the state of transboundary cooperation.

Figure 2. The trade connections and collaborative groups in eastern Africa. Source: Allan et al. 2019.

In this blog I will focus on hydropolitics - the politics of water - and will discuss some of the key issues facing the Nile riparians and, crucially, their cooperative efforts.