President John Agyekum Kufuor, has said though Africa is abundantly resourced with many water bodies, the lack of technical-know-how, has not favoured it to tap the available opportunities. The President was speaking at the opening of a three-day international conference on water and sustainable development in Africa in Accra yesterday.

"The continent has mighty rivers of the Nile, the Congo, the Niger, the Volta... Sadly, the reality is that Africa is, perhaps, the continent most at the mercy of the dangers posed by the excess and scarcity of waters. This is because the knowledge and technical-know-how needed to manage and develop this vital resource have been in very short supply. Needless to say, the required investments have also been negligible," he told participants at the conference.

The objective of the conference is to identify practical options to link the Africa Water Vision with the New Partnership for Africa Development (NEPAD), and is sponsored by the Netherlands government.

President Kufuor said this has posed a constraint to Africa's development and "reduced it to a continent of natural disasters alternating between droughts with dehumanizing famine, and deluges that sweep away everything on their way, like homes, infrastructure, livestock and even human live."

He suggested that for Africa to get access to safe and sufficient water on sustainable basis for health and well-being and its people, there is the needy to look for capital, technical-know-how, management and committed partners.

He called on participants and interested parties to deliberate with the required realism as "it is not possible to acquire the know-how and technology to develop our water resources without cost."

He said due to the necessity of water to social development, antagonistic ideology and partisan stance should be discouraged and there should rather be recourse to a consultative approach to ensure safe and sufficient water management to meet our social and developmental needs.

The Prince of Orange, William Alexander of Netherlands, who is currently on a four-day visit to Ghana and was a special guest at the conference said although water is scarce in many places, at the global level there is enough water to provide 'water security' if we can change the way we manage and develop it