Conclusive remarks

 Hi! 

    Here we are at the end of the term and therefore of my exchange at UCL. It is time to conclude this blog with some final thoughts. In my introduction, I confided to you that I was particularly curious to discover more about the challenges facing East Africa and I did not fail to keep my word with regard to the subject of study of my last post on the seaweed fisherwomen of Zanzibar! 

    Taking an interest in Africa's development through the prism of water is an original approach. Water, which represents the simplest vital need for human beings, is at the root of many problems, of which I have only mentioned a few that have caught my attention, and this without looking for any coherence between them, as you will have noticed... 

    So I looked at water infrastructure financing, then at migration caused by climate change, then at a Ted Talk linking water and development issues to new technologies, then at COP26 at the heart of last fall's news and finally at women's emancipation in Zanzibar through fishing. I did not focus on a particular region, theme or case study, but rather on a variety of topics that I wanted to explore in depth, but also that intersected with several blog thematics in order to open my mind and to think out the box.

    I hope I have tried to think against myself as Binyavanga Wainaina invites us to do in his article "How to Write About Africa" (2006) in order to avoid repeating preconceived and false ideas about Africa, which remains an inexhaustible source of wonder.

    To further develop the context of climate refugee migration as requested in a comment to this blog post, I invite you to read Fred Pearce's excellent October 17, 2017 publication entitled "How Big Water Projects Helped Trigger Africa's Migrant Crisis" which creates a link between my blog posts. 

Illustration of Fred Pearce's article: People in the northern Nigerian city of Maiduguri gather along the seasonal Ngadda River, which feeds into Lake Chad.  STEFAN HEUNIS/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

    Indeed, we have studied the financing of these water projects as well as a concrete technology (Kala Fleming's Ted Talk) contributing to the democratization of water infrastructures. Fred Pearce links these water projects with another of our study subjects, the Migrant Crisis. This shows us once again how water is a resource that is both politicized because it is at the heart of monopolization strategies and also politicizing because of the disputes it generates and the population displacements it explains. Water is therefore definitely political!

    I hope my dear readers that you have enjoyed reading my prose. I am always open to your comments! 



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