Green Water. What is it?
It's the water flowing through the leaves of a baobab tree. The moisture suspended between grains of sand in the Sahel. The rain held in the soil of a Malawian smallholder's field, waiting to be pulled up by roots. It's the water that 80% of small-holder farming in Africa depends on, and that 95% of the continent's staple food production runs on.
And yet it receives just 5% of public agricultural funding.
Why Africa?
Because 60% of the world's cultivable but unused land sits in Sub-Saharan Africa. Because most of the continent has few perennial rivers, no dam can hold green water, no pipeline can divert it. It lives in soil, plants, and air, managed not by ministries but by farmers, foresters, and pastoralists, the front-line stewards of Africa's water.
Blue water vs. green water, briefly:
Blue water is what we usually picture: the liquid in rivers, lakes, wetlands, and aquifers, water we can pump, dam, and pipe. Green water is rainfall that infiltrates the soil and is taken up by plants, or returned to the atmosphere through evapotranspiration. Rainfed agriculture runs entirely on green water. Irrigated agriculture uses both. The concept was introduced by Swedish hydrologist Malin Falkenmark in 1995, and three decades later, it's still the most undervalued resource on the continent.
Where you come in:
The Green Water Africa Film Prize is a short film competition (3-5 minutes) open to filmmakers, scientists, students, artists, and anyone with a story to tell. We're looking for portraits of place, people, and practice: terraces, half-moons, agroforestry, mulching, both long-standing and emerging techniques that hold water in the land. We welcome fiction, documentary, animation, whatever form carries the story.
Bring us stories of the water you've seen.
Submissions should offer portraits of local geographies and lived practices, touching on themes such as water conservation, climate resilience, biodiversity, and social cohesion. We especially welcome films that show how local knowledge and landscape stewardship can inspire solutions for the future.
Building on the experience of Let’s Talk About Water and its collaborations with UNESCO programmes, this initiative aims to mobilise storytelling to highlight innovative, inclusive, and culturally rooted water solutions across Africa.
Why You Should Participate:
By making short films, you can inspire, inform, and promote action around water issues and solutions. The Green Water Africa Film Prize challenges you to show how communities are already shaping tomorrow’s green water solutions.
Your film will be seen by film and water experts, and stands a chance to win cash prizes! Whether you are a student, filmmaker, artist, activist, hydrologist, ecologist, geographer, or social scientist, grab your camera and share your water story.
About the Organisers:
Let’s Talk about Water (LTAW) is a global platform that, for 20 years, has used the power of film to bridge the gap between scientists, policy-makers and the public, creating vital dialogue about water challenges and solutions across the globe.
Let’s Talk About Water will award films that best illuminate the underappreciated value of green water in African agriculture and development. An international panel of scientists, water and development practitioners, and film experts will assess the films.
Prize categories:
1st Prize — $3,000 USD
2nd Prize — $2,000 USD
3rd Prize — $1,000 USD
Finalists (3) — $1,000 USD each
Honorable Mentions (2) — $500 USD each
Winning films will be announced on March 16th, 2027, with premieres and screenings at the Let’s Talk About Water Film Festival in Paris, France; the Luxor African Film Festival in Luxor, Egypt; and other venues in 2027. A small selection of winning films will also be showcased at the African Film Festival New York 2027.
Cover image: EOCIS Soil Moisture Metric for Africa
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Jhonattan Sarmiento
November 2025 -
October 2024
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October 2024
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October 2024
