In Tunisia, the drought of the last five years has triggered a water emergency that is putting a strain on the population, as well as a series of productive sectors strictly dependent on water, such as agriculture. Reserves in the country's 30 reservoirs have fallen below 30% of their capacity, well beyond the alert level. If you consider that at the end of March 2019 the filling rate of the dams was 80%, it is clear that the situation is of unprecedented gravity. This has prompted the authorities to introduce restrictions on the distribution and use of drinking water in homes, where the supply is interrupted from 21 pm to 4 am, in some cities until 5 am. The Ministry of Agriculture and Water Resources has decided to ban the use of drinking water for irrigation of crops and green areas until 30 September. It is also forbidden to use drinking water for cleaning streets and public spaces.

The Tunisian regions in greatest suffering are the driest ones, such as Kasserine and Gabes, but the problem is general and also affects the north-west areas, which thanks to a more temperate climate have always represented the "granary" of the country.

According to the spokesman of the farmers' union, Anis Karbach, the scenario is dramatic and needs urgent action. The wheat harvest this season is estimated at just 2.5 million quintals, a third compared to the 7.4 million quintals produced in the previous season. The figure has generated panic in the sector, because it is even lower than the already gloomy forecast of recent months, which assumed a harvest of at least 3.5 million quintals. A blow for agriculture, which is among the main economic resources of Tunisia and is worth about 10% of GDP.
According to experts, to aggravate the picture were the unusual and higher temperatures of the month of March which, combined with the scarce rains, brought to their knees the crops of Tunis, Beja, Jendouba and the irrigated area of Kairouan.

The water crisis will therefore force the government to increase imports of wheat and cereals: a further blow to state finances, already overwhelmed by an economic crisis that has dragged on for decades, generating a situation of social suffering that since 2019 has pushed thousands of young Tunisians to flee to Europe in search of a better future.

But Tunisia is not the only country to suffer the consequences of climatic variations on water supply. The emergency is in many respects, as is known, planetary, but it obviously manifests itself with dramatic effects in territories where water has been scarce for centuries.

How crucial water is for these countries is well explained by the clash over the water of the Nile between Ethiopia on one side and Egypt and Sudan on the other. Cairo and Khartoum have gone so far as to threaten the use of weapons if the new dam built by Addis Ababa along the Blue Nile route creates water deficits on the two countries crossed downstream by the river. The Gerd, an acronym for Great Dam of the Ethiopian Renaissance, built by the Italian Salini and costing about 5 billion dollars, blocks the course of the main tributary of the Nile. Egypt and Sudan ask that the filling of the basin take place in 11 years, to avoid repercussions on the downstream supply, Ethiopia instead plans to fill the basin in just 7 years and has already started more than a year ago, without the consent of Egypt and Sudan. So far, the operation does not seem to have had tangible consequences and the dispute is stuck in verbal skirmishes, but the risk that it will degenerate into a new regional clash exists and is concrete.

A report published these days by the World Bank, a United Nations agency that fights poverty by allocating funding and aid to countries in difficulty, states that by 2030 the average annual availability of water resources in the Middle East and North Africa, the so-called Mena area, will fall to less than 500 cubic meters, a threshold below which there is talk of "absolute scarcity". . The emergency, we read, is "unprecedented" and will become more acute with the progressive increase in population.

Experts estimate that by 2050 at least 25 billion cubic meters more water will be needed each year to avoid uncontrollable repercussions. "The region needs at least 65 new and very powerful desalination plants, at least as large as the one built in Saudi Arabia in Ras Al-Khair, currently the largest in the world".

The recipe that the World Bank proposes to the countries of North Africa and the Middle East to deal with water stress, therefore provides for the strengthening of infrastructures to increase the production of drinking water, but accompanied by reforms in resource management strategies to increase the efficiency of the distribution system.
More than 30% of the water produced in these countries, in fact, is not billed to customers due to leaks in the transport network, illegal connections, inefficient meters. For this reason, the report argues, it is necessary to delegate management to professional companies and national technical agencies, then directly involving local authorities, which must be given greater powers, both in the management of the service and in the allocation of water resources. Delegating water management to governors and mayors would allow to overcome the problems that today arise from an organization that is too "centralized and technocratic", writes the World Bank, therefore less able to find adequate solutions to the characteristics of individual territories. The dialogue between public authorities and the population is essential, in short, to make citizens understand that water is an increasingly scarce and therefore more precious commodity, that it has a cost (and therefore a price) and that must be protected by all, in the collective interest.

In this regard, Brazil and South Africa are an example, which through awareness campaigns have obtained encouraging results: the populations have understood the emergency and have become more responsible, respecting the restrictions and adapting to the reforms. A path that strengthens the relationship of trust between the state and citizens and lays the foundations for facing a water crisis that risks catastrophic consequences for the entire region.