afri
alliance
social
innovation
Monitoringof water availability
in terms of quality andquantity
for food security
The overall objective of the AfriAlliance Social Inno-
vation Factsheets (SIF)
is to highlight innovation oppor-
tunities that scientists, NGOs, managers and SMEs can
act upon, in order to foster short-term improvements in
the preparedness of African stakeholders for water and
climate change challenges.
Over the duration of AfriAlliance (2016-2021), four
setsof SIFswill bedelivered.
Each setwill cover onemain
theme and explore it across five Social Innovation Fact-
sheets.Monitoring is themain theme of this first series of
SIFs, covering the following five sub-themes:
Monitoring«drinkingwater »quality for improved
health inAfrica.
Monitoring of water availability in terms of quality
and quantity for food security (thisSIF).
Monitoringclimate for earlywarningsystems topre-
pare for extremeweather events.
Monitoring groundwater quantity to ensure sus-
tainable use of this resource and avoid conflicts.
Monitoringwaterpollutionby industriesandurban
areas to protect human health and ecosystems.
As detailed below,
social innovation combines four
dimensions: technological, governance, capacity develop-
ment and business roadmap. Each is described in a spe-
cific section of this thematicSocial Innovation Factsheet.
1
2
3
4
5
SOCIAL INNOVATION
• InAfriAlliance, social innovationmeans tackling
societal, water-related challenges arising from
ClimateChange by combining the technological &
non-technological dimensions of innovation.
• Social innovation refers to those processes and
outcomes focussedon addressing societal goals,
unsatisfied collective needs or societal – as op-
posed tomere economic – returns. It is particularly
salient in the context of the complex and cross-cut-
ting challenges that need to be addressed in the
field of water andClimateChange – andwhichwill
not bemet by relying onmarket signals alone.
• Social innovation consists of new combinations
(or hybrids of existing and new) products, pro-
cesses and services. In order to succeed, social
innovation needs topay attention to technological
aswell as non-technological dimensions :
1) tech-
nology, 2) capacity development, 3) governance
structures and 4) business roadmap.
As such,
these four dimensions of the social innovation
process cut across organisational, sectoral and
disciplinary boundaries and imply new patterns of
stakeholder involvement and learning.
• The success of social innovation is reliant on the
accountability of diverse stakeholders and across
all government levels.
Social
Innovation
Factsheet
#1
•
MONITORING
SOCIETALCHALLENGES
INAFRICADUE TOCLIMATCHANGE
•Given themanifesta-
tionsof ClimateChange
and theconstraintsof
ecosystemsaswell as
socio-economicsystems,
thesocietal challenges in
Africaare to:
–ensure foodsecurity,
water securityandenergy
securityand thebalance
among them (short term),
– transform intoa low
carbon, resilient and
sustainablesociety (long
term).
2
DESCRIPTION
Sustainable development in Africa
is reliant on increasing the viable use of
water resources without significantly degrading ecosystem services, which are
fundamental tohumanwell-being. This isparticularlychallenging inAfricadue to
thehigh spatial and temporal variabilityof availablewater resources [a].
As stated by the IPCC in 2014
[b]
“
Warming of the climate system
is unequivocal, and since the 1950s,
many of the observed changes are
unprecedentedover decades tomillen-
nia. The atmosphere and ocean have
warmed, the amounts of snow and
ice have diminished, and sea level has
risen
”. Studies have predicted that the
averageworld global temperaturemay
increase by 1.4–5.8°C and therewouldbe substantial reduction in freshwater
resources by the end of the 21st century [c].
Due to these impacts of climate change, water availability and food security
arebecoming key challenges asboth arehighly vulnerable to continuously chan-
gingclimaticpatterns.Andagricultureyieldwill likelybeseverelyaffectedover the
next hundred yearsdue tounprecedented ratesof changes in climate system [a]
TheNEPAD report [d] shows that one in four undernourished people in the
world live in Africa:
Africa is the only continent where the absolute number of
undernourished people has increased over the last 30 years. Food insecurity
remains an essentially rural phenomenon and permanent economic access to
food has become the decisive factor in food insecurity..
In this context, where climate change impacts,
water availability and food se-
curity are closely linked, monitoringwater availability to ensure the production is
at stake to tackleeconomic, human, environment andpolitical challenges.
