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Tunisia looks for water solutions - 11th August 2023

The World Bank's worried about water. It says by 2030, the Middle East and North Africa will have problems. There won't be enough water.

For Tunisia, this is the fourth year with little rain. The country has special centres or 'plants' for water. These plants mean farmers can use old or dirty water.

Lotfi Atyaoui's a farmer.

Lotfi Atyaoui: "To tell you the truth, we consider this (wastewater treatment) project to be vital because we suffer a lot from drought and lack of water. If we don't have water, we will lose our agriculture, our trees and our livestock."

Tunisia built its first plants for water in the 1970s. Its first plant to change sea water started in 2018. Today, it has 16 plants. These plants give 6 percent of water for drinking. 94 percent comes from special lakes.

But these lakes are nearly empty.

So Tunisians need more of these water plants. But the plants use lots of oil and gas. That means they're bad for climate change.

The national water company – SONEDE – is building one plant. It knows about this problem.

Mosbah Helali: "The drawback is energy consumption, but this is improving. One of the disadvantages is that it uses a lot of energy. We hope that, with technology, this will improve and that, with solar energy, we'll be able to mitigate the impact of energy consumption a bit."

Tunisia isn't the only county with water problems. Many countries are building more plants. This problem's here to stay.