Africa running out of water as cities see climate change, population boom

As water supplies in Ghana’s capital grew increasingly erratic, Beatrice Kabuki stopped customers from using her grocery store’s bathrooms and installed a plastic storage tank at her home.

“The taps flow once a week and usually at night, so we stay awake to fetch what we can store,” Kabuki, 35, said in an interview in Accra. “We mostly augment by buying water from tankers.”

Cities and towns in several other African nations including Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Ivory Coast have been plagued by similar water shortages in recent months, manifestations of a global supply squeeze brought on by drought, population growth, urbanization and