WATER HARVESTING AND CONSERVATION

This country has in the past suffered severe droughts resulting in famine, death of people and livestock, prolonged water shortages in both the rural and urban areas and electricity rationing due to our reliance on hydro-power. However, we don't seem to learn from our past and plan to mitigate future occurrences but instead what we get from the government officers who are charged with such matters is financial scandals involving construction of dams that may never be completed to serve their intended purposes. Let's look at some of the areas that require attention.
This country receives rains every year and even during droughts, it's not all regions that suffer at once. In fact, a large portion of the country has two rain seasons in the months of April-May and October-December. Therefore, it's  possible to encourage water harvesting and storage at least for domestic use. The government has the duty to encourage this through tax incentives in the purchase and construction of water storage tanks. This incentive can apply to corporations, institutions and private homes alike.
On the other hand, the government and the the local authorities need to have workable and enforceable housing policies so that there are standard housing codes and plans for  houses constructed in the rural and urban areas with facilities for water harvesting. This means that private home and large estate developers in the urban areas will have to ensure that as much water for domestic use is collected from their roofs and the floods within their areas are channeled to a central facility for cleaning and purification for washing and watering plants and lawns. This  will call for metering even such waters to avoid misuse by car washers and lawn owners. Large urban estates and institutions in the rural areas will also be required to have water recycling facilities such that water from bathrooms and that used for washing could be cleaned out for reuse.
Dam construction is an expensive undertaking and this is perhaps the reason why there are all those scandals involving millions of shillings in the water ministry. But we all know that this is the best way of  harvesting and conserving large amounts of water, which  otherwise would end up being consumed by the sun or draining to the Indian Ocean, which is an unnecessary waste. Water from such  dams could be used for domestic  as well as irrigation purposes. There would be need to come up with various designs so that individuals, institutions, corporations could  pick whatever suits them and collect tax rebates after completion.
Green house farming is an old technology that started in the west nearly 70 years ago and taken to new heights by the Israelis. Africa needs this technology probably more than anybody else but at the moment there is very little interest and investment in it. This is one technology where one could get very large yields per unit space as compared to conventional farming and with very little water usage and wastage. Frankly speaking, I don't know what our country is waiting for particularly with our present challenges of global warming and population pressure.
We all know that forests help conserve water which  gives us the  springs and rivers that we later abstract for use. We are depleting our forests from these water catchment areas at an unsustainable rates. We need to increase the current forest cover by greening all those hills and ranges if we hope to continue getting water from them. The wetlands that act as sinks for our water have been taken over by individuals who have even the cheek to plant eucalyptus trees to drain them faster. There are laws to protect them and the new county governments had better get their acts together before they dry-up due to greed of a few of us. Our hills have been stripped bare of vegetation and this has exacerbated the problem of water and wind erosion. Again, there are laws that guide us on cultivating on sloppy lands and erosion control but all these are being abused at the moment due to the runaway corruption in this country. Uncontrolled soil erosion will interfere with dam operation which can make them unmanageable.
Finally, Africa needs not reinvent the wheel because the technology is out there but we shall be required to domestic it to suit our environment. The mighty USA, China and Australia are now the leading countries in water harvesting, conservation and even greenhouse technology which Africa needs to emulate without any fear of neo-colonialism!