Water scarcity and the fracturing of North Africa’s future

Across sun-scorched North Africa, water is much more than simply a basic resource. It is a strategic lifeline that underpins societies and the stability of states.
The naturally arid climate in the region means water is chronically scarce. North African countries on average have less than 1,000 cubic meters of renewable fresh water per person per year, which is the threshold for water poverty.
Recurrent droughts only intensify the strain. During the 2022 growing season, for example, a severe drought across the region’s grain belt left reservoir levels low and farmlands desiccated.
This perilous balance means water security is an urgent priority because any shortfall threatens to reverberate through economies and heighten social and political tensions.
The strategic value of water is also reshaping regional geopolitics. Several major aquifers and river basins span national borders in North Africa, demanding a degree of cross-border cooperation that often proves elusive.
The Bounaim-Tafna aquifer, for instance, straddles Morocco and Algeria, yet a decades-old dispute over the Western Sahara has bred a “politics of silence and noncooperation” in management of this shared water source. With each country continuing to tap the aquifer unilaterally, the basin has become overexploited and polluted, thereby illustrating how mismanagement thrives amid political rivalries.
Such cases represent a dire warning: Without joint stewardship of resources, competition for water could inflame tensions, and analysts caution that control of water supplies might become a principal cause of future conflicts in the region.
The human face of the crisis is grim. Drought has pushed rural communities to the brink. Yet water scarcity in North Africa has far-reaching economic repercussions beyond these daily struggles.
Agriculture, which consumes the lion’s share of water resources, remains the backbone of livelihoods and gross domestic product across the Maghreb. However, chronic mismanagement means an estimated 82 percent of the region’s water is not used efficiently, as a result of which water productivity is about half the global average.
As farms wilt and industries are put at risk, the Food and Agriculture Organization is already warning that acute water shortages could shave 6-14 percent off regional GDP by 2050, the largest projected economic loss from water scarcity anywhere in the world.
Yet the region remains crippled in its struggle for water security by the confluence of historical mismanagement and modern pressures. From colonial-era water treaties to ambitious, mid-20th century dam projects, previous policies often prioritized national control over shared stewardship, leaving a legacy of inequitable access and mistrust.
Moreover, climate pressures are now compounding water woes in North Africa, pushing natural and human-built systems to their limits. The mostly arid climate is yielding ever-more extreme cycles of drought and erratic rainfall patterns in the region, straining rivers, aquifers, and dams beyond the capacity to cope.

Multi-year rain shortfalls have sapped crucial reserves. In Morocco, for example, key reservoirs have plummeted to a fraction of their normal levels, forcing farmers to halve the land area used for irrigated crops.
Besides the acute scarcity, aging water infrastructure is ill-prepared for such stresses. In Libya, years of conflict and neglect have left facilities acutely vulnerable. Coastal desalination plants and the centralized Great Man-Made River network of pipelines and aqueducts have suffered chronic power outages, disrepair, and even deliberate sabotage, causing entire cities to lose reliable supplies.
Paradoxically, when intense rainfall does occur, the lack of maintenance and repairs to infrastructure can result in disaster. This reality tragically played out in Derma, Libya, in September 2023, when two dams collapsed as a result of decades of infrastructural decay fueled by political chaos, causing deadly floods.

Water supplies might become a principal cause of future conflicts in the region.

Hafed Al-Ghwell

These converging climate extremes and infrastructure failures serve as ominous warnings of a future in which water insecurity becomes even more acute.
But the economic and social ramifications of intense water insecurity are already being felt. As noted, agriculture consumes the vast majority of water in North Africa, and so is bearing the brunt of scarcity.
In Morocco, the agricultural sector accounts for 85 percent of national water use. There, and in Algeria and Tunisia, the sector provides up to a fifth of GDP and export earnings, and offers employment for a sizable share of the workforce.
Drought and dwindling water supplies have therefore resulted in smaller harvests, job losses in farming communities, and rising grocery prices that are contributing to food insecurity. Water shortages are also adversely affecting hydropower and industrial output, creating knock-on effects for the availability of electricity and economic growth.
These stresses are translating into real political pressure. Communities facing dry taps, power blackouts, and failing crops have grown more restive; protests over water access and high prices have flared in several countries as citizens vent their frustration at ineffective governance.
Worse still, the role of water as both an instrument and casualty of conflict has become very apparent in Sudan. Water stations have been deliberately targeted during the ongoing civil war between rival military and paramilitary factions, cutting off supplies to millions of people in Darfur and Khartoum.
Such tactics are not new. During the conflict in Libya, militias weaponized access to water to punish resistant communities. In Mali, extremists seized control of boreholes to extract concessions from villagers.
Such actions, ongoing and in the future, are part of a broader pattern in which nonstate actors and governments alike are exploiting scarcity to consolidate power, often triggering cycles of displacement and radicalization.
The resultant humanitarian crises — including malnutrition, disease outbreaks, and mass migration — are exacerbated by institutional paralysis. Unfortunately, regional bodies such as the Arab League and the African Union lack enforceable mechanisms to mediate disputes, while international donors tend to focus on emergency aid rather than systemic overhauls.
Yet the consequences of inaction extend beyond North Africa. Europe, which is already grappling with migration from Sub-Saharan Africa, could face new waves of displaced populations as North African states buckle under compounding crises.
Unfortunately, the sense of urgency in efforts to address these interlocking threats remains muted. National governments, preoccupied with immediate economic and security-related challenges, often deprioritize water policy. International powers, wary of becoming entangled in complex regional politics, default to technical fixes, such as desalination projects or drip-irrigation schemes that ignore underlying failures of governance.
The absence of a cohesive strategy to manage shared water basins, modernize infrastructure or regulate consumption perpetuates a dangerous status quo. Without coordinated investment in water diplomacy and climate adaptation, the transition of nations in North Africa to sustainable economies will remain illusory, replaced by a future in which water scarcity fuels instability faster than diplomacy can contain it.
The path forward demands a reimagining of water as a cornerstone of regional security. This requires the updating of outdated treaties, efforts to foster joint management of transboundary resources, and the integration of climate resilience into economic planning.
It also necessitates that we confront uncomfortable truths: Agricultural subsidies that promote water intensive crops are unsustainable and urban growth must be decoupled from the reckless extraction of groundwater.
Above all, it calls for recognition of the fact that water scarcity is not a far-distant threat but a present-day battleground. The stakes are nothing less than the long-term stability of North Africa and, by extension, that of its neighbors across the Mediterranean and beyond.

• Hafed Al-Ghwell is a senior fellow and executive director of the North Africa Initiative at the Foreign Policy Institute of the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, DC. X: @HafedAlGhwell