Water for daily use [in Rahaita, one of the most southerly villages on Eritrea's Red Sea coast] is pumped out of wells by diesel-powered generators, but Eritrea imports all its fuel, making diesel an expensive option. A few years ago the government helped the village set up a solar-powered generator, “But there are days when the clouds cover the sun,” said [village administrator Doran Ali] Osman.
More help is at hand. Rahaita is one of seven villages in the region covered by the Eritrea Wind Energy Application pilot project – funded by the Global Environment Facility and the UN Development Programme – and will be electrified by the end of 2009.
A rapid assessment of water sources by the government’s Water Resource Department found that 58 percent of households in rural areas have access to safe drinking water. Climate change projections by the Eritrean government [predict that] temperatures could soar by more than 4 degrees Celsius by 2050, [leading to] longer and more intense [droughts].
Rainfall is inadequate and underground resources are declining [and] becoming salty. [...] Almost 70 percent of the semi-arid land is affected by drought, including the highlands, which usually enjoy higher rainfall.
Villagers [are] planning communal gardens to grow and sell vegetables to supplement incomes.
Water is everything
“Water is everything to us,” said Mogos Weldeyohannes, Director General of the Department of Environment. “We spend more than half our budget on conserving water.” This could not be verified, as data are hard to come by in a country still recovering from a 30-year war of independence and later border conflicts with Ethiopia.
“[We] faced one of the worst droughts since independence [in 1993] last year [2008]. Crops failed. We are determined that rainwater has to be harvested to be used,” he said. [T]he capital, Asmara, [only gets] running water on three days out of every ten.
Eritrea has built scores of small dams in the past three decades and is planning 200 more, as well as diversion structures to harvest and store water. [...] Gahtelai, a village in the highlands in the Northern Red Sea Region, is harvesting water from fog: “fog collectors” [harvest] about 14 litres to 20 litres of water per square metre [...] every day and fed into a reservoir to irrigate vegetable gardens.
Source: IRIN, 15 Jun 2009
