Water use governance under climate variability in Sub-Saharan Africa agrifood systems: a systematic review

Résumé

In Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), food systems, agriculture, and water security are becoming more intertwined as climatic variability increases. In order to assess the effectiveness and consistency of water-use regulation in SSA's agrifood systems under climatic variability and to offer evidence-based routes toward resilience, this systedialmatic review synthesizes fragmented empirical and policy-based knowledge. 1,648 records from major databases and institutional sources were found using the PRISMA 2020 framework. These records were then filtered in three steps and reduced to 22 studies that satisfied six a priori eligibility criteria spanning geographic scope, thematic relevance, study type, language, publication timeframe, and methodological quality. The included evidence base was concentrated in Pan-SSA/multi-country analyses (9 of 22 studies) and Southern Africa (4 of 22), with the remainder distributed across East Africa, West Africa, and specific country contexts. The results demonstrate how climate variability acts as a stress multiplier, revealing the limitations of water-use governance frameworks calibrated to historical hydrological baselines. Institutional fragmentation across water, energy, and agriculture ministries was identified as a driver of the policy-implementation gap in roughly 70% of the governance-focused studies reviewed, and up to 80% of surveyed rural households in the reviewed case studies relied on unprotected or hazardous water sources despite adequate national resource bases. The implications range from “economic scarcity” at the household level to conflict at the basin level, as observed in the Niger Basin and Lake Chad. Technological adaptations (solar irrigation, drought-tolerant crops, digital advisories) and Indigenous Knowledge Systems (sand dams, zai pits) each improve resilience but cannot substitute for functional governance institutions. The review concludes that resilient water-use governance in SSA agrifood systems requires strengthened cross-sectoral institutional coordination, increased local implementation capacity, formal integration of Indigenous Knowledge Systems alongside statutory institutions, and deliberate equity safeguards in the distribution of adaptation resources.

Citer ce document

Accès au document

Texte intégral en lecture en ligne, réservé aux abonnés SPHAERO et aux membres de l'institution. Se connecter

Auteur(s)

Statistiques

Consultations : 1

Téléchargements : 0