OECD should help water infrastructure in Horn of Africa, says report

15 August 2011

Members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's (OECD's) Development Assistance Committee need to invest more to improve Africa's water infrastructure.

This is the finding of ONE International's analysis into the Horn of Africa's drought crisis.

It stated that members of the group should contribute $2.01 billion (£1.22 billion) in a bid to help millions from being affected and to increase access to food and water by making improvements to facilities.

A spokesman for ONE said investment in infrastructure can have a "significant impact" for communities in Africa.

"The majority of the population of Africa live in rural areas and can therefore find themselves living off-grid - that is, without access to roads, electricity, health facilities or clean water," he stated.

He went on to recognise that infrastructure development in areas such as transport could improve people's lives, saying better roads would help farmers get their goods to towns more quickly.

This, along with better storage facilities, could prevent them from losing up to 50 per cent of their harvest, the spokesman noted. 

Category: Water