Desalination developments

For all its success in recent years as a country with a rapidly growing tourism market, Cape Verde has always faced challenges to its advancement from a lack of resources.

While Santiago and the other islands of the Atlantic archipelago can rely on the natural blessings of sunshine, sea and natural scenery to help its tourism, other elements are short in number. The fact is that the sum total of coal, oil and gas in Cape Verde is nil.

In addition to this, the country is pretty short when it comes to fresh water, an obvious problem for its 500,000 population, not to mention visitors, who have grown in number in recent years. With more economic development as well as a larger number of people who might be on the archipelago at any time, the addition of both more appliances and extra thirsty mouths presents a significant potential stumbling block.

Having the sea at hand, desalination is one obvious solution. Earlier this week Macauhub reported on how output in this sector is rising on Santiago. Cape Verde's main water and electricity company Electra has announced plans to double the capacity of the Palmarejo desalination plant - which supplies water to Praia - to 12,000 cubic metres of water each day by the end of this year.

The company also told Cape Verdean news agency Inforpress that it is seeking to establish a 5,000 cubic metre installed water facility in the city.

As a result of such developments, Macauhub noted, Praia will then reach a water capacity of 82 litres per person per day, exceeding the 80 per day the World Health Organisation recommends for a small city or town like Praia.

This move to more desalination may be part of a wider recognition of the problem and its solutions. In November, Ron Hughes, the proprietor of Cape Verde travel, observed that the emphasis has been placed on developers in the country to add to the water-generating capacity.

He stated: "Distillation plants are being installed and there is a built in factor that if there is a new development they must become independent, so they need their own desalination plant, toilet removal and all the rest of it. Desalination is required if hotels register themselves, so they become self-contained."

All this, Mr Hughes noted, is part of the development of infrastructure that has included the arrival of tarmac roads and various other new initiatives. In this context, it may be recognised that the actions incumbent on developers, as well as those of a firm like Electra, show clearly that the issue of water supply has been identified and is being addressed.

This article has been brought to you by Sambala Developments: The developer for Cape Verde property

This article has been brought to you be Sambala; the developer for Cape Verde Property.

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