Zambia’s Kariba Dam crisis is one of inequality

As discussions at the UN Climate Change Conference (COP29) in Baku over how to finance climate action remain gridlocked, Southern Africans are learning that some “renewable energy” might not be renewable after all in an age of climate age.

This year, Zambia and Zimbabwe experienced a major drought that devastated both countries. It destroyed harvests and sent the Zambezi River’s water flows to an historic low.

For decades, the Kariba Dam on the River had provided the bulk of electricity consumed in Zambia and Zimbabwe. However, in September, Zambian officials signalled that, owing to desperately low water levels, only one out of six turbines on its side of the lake could continue to operate.

Entire cities have been deprived of electricity, sometimes for days on end. Sporadic access to power has become the norm since, in 2022, record low rainfall led to a glaring imbalance between the water intake level at Lake Kariba – the world’s biggest dam reservoir – and water consumption by Zimbabweans and Zambians. This has hit hard urban households, 75 percent of which normally have access to electricity.

Rural areas, too, are suffering from the dramatic reduction in precipitation. Zambia is experiencing its driest agricultural season in more than four decades. The worst-affected provinces usually produce half of the annual maize output and are home to more than three-quarters of Zambia’s livestock population, which is reeling from scorched pastures and water scarcity.

Crop failure and livestock losses are fuelling food inflation. UNICEF has reported that more than 50,000 Zambian children under the age of five are at risk of falling into severe wasting, the deadliest form of malnutrition. Zambia has also been battling a cholera outbreak with more than 20,000 reported cases, as access to water has become increasingly scarce. This is a water, energy and food emergency all at once.

While many are blaming climate change for these calamities, its effect on weather has only exacerbated an already existing crisis. This grave situation is the consequence of two interrelated policy choices that are presenting massive challenges not just in Zambia, but across much of Africa.

First is the prioritisation of urban areas over rural ones in development. Zambia’s Gini coefficient – a measure of income inequality – is among the world’s highest. While workers in cities are much more likely to earn regular wages, the poorest layers of the population depend on agricultural self-employment and the vagaries of the climate.

The massive gap between rich and poor is not accidental; it is by design. For instance, tax reforms in recent decades have benefitted wealthy urban elites and large rural landowners, with subsistence farmers and agricultural labourers left behind.