Water scarcity is a global scourge that threatens the livelihoods of four billion people around the world today. It is astonishing that entire populations continue to face ancient problems in the 21stcentury, parallel to extraordinary modern progress in human development and technological advances. This is both a testament to shared global challenges and existing disparities among nations – in wealth, standards of living and development stature. 

---

By GWC Staff

Water scarcity is a global scourge that threatens the livelihoods of four billion people around the world today. It is astonishing that entire populations continue to face ancient problems in the 21stcentury, parallel to extraordinary modern progress in human development and technological advances. This is both a testament to shared global challenges and existing disparities among nations – in wealth, standards of living and development stature. 

The World Bank notes that, “growing populations, rising incomes, and a changing climate will converge to create unprecedented strains for the world’s water resources”. Water scarcity impacts all aspects of life, to which no group, or nation is immune. But it’s devastating consequences is ever felt in the developing world, where millions have limited access to safe drinking water and are exposed to water-borne diseases, lower food production, and climate change. In Africa, the problem is further worsened by regional instability and institutional failures. Hydro-politics aside, water is truly an area of shared human interest that could serve as a common denominator bringing together peoples, nations, ideas, and industry.

Water scarcity

U.N. Water emphasizes the importance of SDG 6: “With water at the very core of sustainable development, SDG 6 does not only have strong linkages to all of the other SDGs, it also underpins them”. 

The World Banks says water scarcity can “induce migration and ignite civil conflict”. Taken in the context of other environmental trends, the emerging water crisis poses an additional threat to peace and human development around the world, and particularly in unstable and dry regions.

The report makes another direct correlation between water and climate change: “Water is on the frontlines of climate change. It channels the main impacts of climate change to all aspects of the economy”. Water management, the report concludes, will be a determining factor in the world’s efforts to achieve SDGs and fight poverty.

Water is the basis for sustaining human life and development and sits rightfully at the center of governmental policy and planning. Its critical significance therefore, both as a resource and as a policy matter, is expected to continue shaping foreign policies and fates in vast regions around the world. The discussion around conservation, water-use efficiency, technological improvements, and water resource management should have the right to life as a guiding principle. 

  The benchmarks provide a clear blueprint for global sustainability, but policy implementation will largely rely on the political will and capacity of affected regions. This requires unprecedented regional and international cooperation and coordinated priorities, to build partnerships, implement best practices, and collectively face the challenge of saving the world.