Water of Africa, a very serious candid camera

We are walking through the aisles of a shop when we notice a free bottle of water dispenser , where the Water of Africa brand stands out in plain sight . We take one, and here’s the unpleasant surprise: the water is cloudy, undrinkable , even with some residue of earth on the bottom.

The label , instead of specifying the mineral content and boasting its beneficial properties, makes it clear the damage that can be experienced by those who dare to drink it . 

This is how the very successful candid camera devised by the humanitarian organization Action Against Hunger takes place to forcefully draw attention to an issue as serious as it is systematically left on the sidelines of the political and media agenda: that of contaminated water in Africa.

The communication campaign, sponsored by the Lombardy region, has received the support of illustrious chefs of the caliber of Carlo Cracco, Claudio Sadler and Cristina Bowerman and dozens of celebrities.

Unsafe water, a sanitary plague

From our comfortable Western homes we find it hard to put ourselves in their shoes, but even today 319 million people in Africa drink dirty and contaminated water . 

They do this because they simply have no other choice . With no running water in the house or wells in the immediate vicinity, they are forced to quench their thirst from untreated water sources. With all that that goes with it in health terms.

For their bodies, already debilitated by a poor and unbalanced diet, this is an additional stress. The continuous exposure to bacteria, viruses and parasites contained in the water leads to frequent episodes of diarrhea and intestinal infections that worsen their state of malnutrition .

The unsolved problem of world hunger

When the 197 UN member countries signed the 2030 Agenda in 2015, they solemnly pledged to ” end hunger , guarantee food security, improve nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture” ( Objective 2 ).

We are now one third of the way, but this goal still appears very far away . This is testified by the Sofi 2020 report (The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World) published by FAO and considered the most authoritative source on the subject.

Today, 690 million people in the world suffer from hunger , that is 8.9 per cent of the population, with an increase of 10 million compared to the previous year. Adding moderate and severe food insecurity to this calculation , we reach 2 billion.

Furthermore, these data refer to the pre-pandemic. According to the FAO, the very serious economic crisis triggered by Covid-19  will result in another 83 million people at risk of malnutrition, at best. At worst, it will be 132 million more than it is now.

Child malnutrition remains worrying in Africa

In Africa, malnutrition affects about 250 million people , or 36.4% of the global total. Going forward at this rate, the situation is set to worsen to 433.2 million in 2030 (more than half of the global total). The situation is particularly critical in sub-Saharan Africa , where 32 million people have fallen into the grip of hunger since 2015.

That these numbers are serious is beyond any doubt. They become even more alarming when one focuses on the condition of the children. Around the world, Action Against Hunger recalls , every 13 seconds a child dies from hunger or a related disease. 

Childhood malnutrition has health consequences that are often irreversible. Save the Children reports that in sub-Saharan Africa as many as 28 million children have stunting that could compromise their physical and mental development .