Refugees dig for water in a dried-up watering hole in Jamam camp, in South Sudan's Upper Nile state. Credit: Jared Ferrie/IPS

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Sep 2 2013 (IPS)

When the General Assembly declared 2013 the International Year of Water Cooperation (IYWC) three years ago, the U.N.’s highest policy-making body was conscious of the perennial conflicts triggered by competition over one of the world’s most critical finite resources.

Current and past water conflicts and marine disputes have included confrontations between Israel and Jordan, India and Pakistan, Egypt and Ethiopia, Palestine and Israel, and Bolivia, Peru and Chile.

Picking up the cue from the United Nations, the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI) is focusing its weeklong meeting this year on the theme “Water Cooperation – Building Partnerships.”

The 23rd annual meeting in the Swedish capital, attended by over 2,500 delegates, is due to conclude Friday.

Striking a more optimistic note, SIWI’s Executive Director Torgny Holmgren told IPS historically, water has been a source of cooperation more often than not. Over the past 50 years, he noted, there has been almost 2,000 interactions on transboundary basins of which only seven have involved violence and 70 percent have been cooperative.

“I think the future situation depends very much on our ability to deal with the water demand challenge,” said Holmgren, a former ambassador and head of the Department for Development Policy at the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs.

“If we are able to increase water productivity so that we can free up water resources for protecting our environment, thereby ensuring the sustainability of the supply, and allowing for new users and uses, it will be easy to cooperate,” he said. “If we aren’t able to manage demand, and water management becomes more of a zero-sum exercise, avoiding conflict will be a challenge.”

Irina Bokova, director-general of the Paris-based U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), the lead U.N. agency which will oversee IWYC, points out that there are numerous examples in which transboundary waters have proved to be a source of cooperation rather than conflict.

Nearly 450 agreements on international waters were signed between 1820 and 2007. And over 90 international water agreements were drawn up to help manage shared water basins on the African continent, she said in an interview with IPS last March.

According to the London-based WaterAid, nearly 768 million people in the world live without safe water, roughly one in eight people. Some 2.5 billion others live without access to sanitation, about 39 percent of the world’s population.

The U.S. intelligence community has already portrayed a grim scenario for the foreseeable future: ethnic conflicts, regional tensions, political instability and even mass killings.

During the next 10 years, “many countries important to the United States will almost certainly experience water problems – shortages, poor water quality, or floods – that will contribute to the risk of instability and state failure, and increased regional tensions,” stated a National Intelligence Estimate released last year.

In a report released Monday, SIWI says in a world where the population is growing fast and the demand for freshwater is growing along with it, “the fact that we all depend on the same finite water resources is becoming impossible to ignore.

“Cooperation between sectors is fundamental if we are to successfully share and manage our most precious resource,” the group says.

The water problem is not something that can be solved only by experts, says the report titled “Cooperation for a Water Wise World: Partnerships for Sustainable Development.”

“We need to cooperate with actors outside the water sector, to foster collaboration between the various decision-making institutions, between the private, public and civic sectors as well as between actors who work in research, policy and practice,” it says.

“Only through sound and forward-looking partnerships can we achieve a water wise world,” Holmgren noted.

Addressing delegates Monday, U.N. Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson said in a world of population growth and pressures on water resources within and among nations, sound and fair water management “is a huge task and a clear imperative for all of us. And we have no time to waste.”

The 2015 deadline for the U.N. Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) is rapidly approaching. And there is good news in some areas, he said. Since the adoption of the MDGs in the year 2000, global poverty rates have been reduced by half. Two hundred million slum dwellers live better lives. School enrolment rates have increased dramatically.

“And last year we were able to announce that the world had reached the target for access to improved sources of water,” Eliasson said.

But water quality to a large degree still fails to meet basic World Health Organization (WHO) standards, he cautioned.

One of the main factors that negatively affects water quality is the lack of sanitation. The sanitation target is among the most lagging of the MDG Goals, with more than 2.5 billion people around the world without adequate sanitation – more than one-third of humanity, said Eliasson.

Asked if water and sanitation should stand alone as one of the proposed Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) currently under discussion as part of the U.N.’s post-2015 development agenda, Holmgren told IPS, “I think we need a dedicated water SDG that stresses both the productive and protective roles of water resources management and the sustainable of water and sanitation.”

In addition, he said, the intimate connections between water, food, energy, security, biodiversity, and other issues must be spelled out, either in the water goal or in other goals.

Irrigation canal, Mchinji. Credit: FISD/IPS

By Thalif Deen
ROME, Jun 19 2013 (IPS)

Since food and water are so closely interlinked, there is a lingering fear based on the assumption, if there is no water, there will be no food.

The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) underlines the strong links between the two when it declares that agriculture accounts for over 70 percent of global water use.

Meanwhile, the share of water available for agriculture is expected to decline to 40 percent by 2050, warns an FAO report released here for the agency’s 38thsession, currently underway. “Water is becoming scarce not because the volume of water is reduced but because demand from society is increasing.” - Prof. Jan Lundqvist, Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI)

The figures are based on statistics released by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

The availability of fresh water resources shows a similar picture to that of land: sufficient resources at the global level are unevenly distributed, and an increasing number of countries, or parts of countries, are reaching critical levels of water scarcity, according to FAO.

The FAO also says many of the water-scarce countries in the Near East and North Africa, and in South Asia, further lack land resources.

Due to their vulnerability, coastal areas, the Mediterranean basin, the North East and North African countries and dry Central Asia appear as locations where investment in water management techniques should be considered a priority when promoting agricultural productivity growth.

Asked if the link between agricultural productivity and water scarcity is real, Prof. Jan Lundqvist, senior scientific advisor at Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI), told IPS, “Yes and No”.

If there is no water (e.g. in deserts), food cannot be produced, he pointed out. But water is a renewable resource and the hydrological cycle, which is driven by the sun, will continue also in the future.

The amount of renewable freshwater in terms of precipitation falling over the continents is about 110,000 km3 per year, he said. But with an increasing population, the amount of water per capita is inevitably reduced.

It is increasingly difficult, costly and dangerous, according to Lundqvist, to divert more water from rivers and lakes and to pump water from groundwater reserves.

“At the same time, with economic development, the per-capita demand increases. It is, indeed, a tricky equation,” he noted.

Since everything humans eat requires water to be produced, the paradox of the “water we eat” was best illustrated by an exhibition at a SIWI conference last year, which pointed out that the production of an average hamburger – two slices of bread, beef, tomato, lettuce, onions and cheese – consumes about 2,389 litres of water, compared to 140 litres for a cup of coffee and 135 for a single egg.

An average meal of rice, beef and vegetables requires about 4,230 litres of water while a chunky, succulent beef steak, a staple among the rich in the world’s industrial countries, consumes one of the largest quantum of water: about 7,000 litres.

Vincent Casey, technical support manager at the London-based WaterAid, told IPS that irrigated agriculture accounts for the vast majority of water withdrawals in many countries.

A great deal can be done to prevent water scarcity through changes to thirsty agricultural practices.

Crop types, irrigation methods and water tariffs can be changed to reduce demand. These actions require political commitment, which can be difficult to get, he noted.

Two things are required for water security: well-managed water resources and well-managed water supply services (pumps, pipes taps, storage tanks).

Water scarcity is already a daily reality for over 760 million people right now – not because irrigation farmers are drinking all of their water, Casey said, but because of a lack of the water supply services required to make use of available water.

“If we didn’t have reservoirs, pipes and taps in the UK, we would be water scarce too”.

Management of the water supply crisis will involve demand management in areas where there is pressure on the resource, he added, and supply management where people lack any kind of access to water — not because it isn’t there but because it requires investment to develop it.

If there is a scarcity of water, Lundqvist told IPS, food production will be a victim for two main reasons.

Firstly, other sectors will require a large share of water supply. With urbanization both industry and households will be able to articulate their demands and they are in a better position to pay for additional water.

“Water is becoming scarce not because the volume of water is reduced but because demand from society is increasing,” he said.

A second reason is that precipitation pattern will be more stochastic as a result of global warming. Risk will increase for farmers, since uncertainty will increase.

This is particularly problematic, he pointed out, for rain-fed agriculture. But with an increasing frequency and amplitude of droughts and floods, and with the increasing demands from other sectors, the timing of supplies for irrigation during the agricultural seasons will be more tricky.

Higher temperature will speed up the return flow of water back to atmosphere with complications for the farmers.

Under these circumstances –and considering the fact that enough food is produced to feed the entire world population properly– it will be crucial, he said, to make sure that the food produced is beneficially used to the degree feasible and reaches the consumers, including the poor.

Between one-third and half of the food produced is lost, wasted or converted. This means a tremendous waste of resources.

“We must walk on two legs into the future, ensure that enough is produced and make sure that the produce is accessed and used in a most worthwhile manner,” he declared.

The real predicament is regional. The population continues to increase in many areas where water availability is already quite limited.

Even more challenging: the rainfall pattern is becoming more unreliable, while temperature is increasing, he noted.

There will thus be seasons and periods when a growing number of people will experience prolonged droughts (they may last over several years) while in other places, floods will have devastating consequences, he warned.

Residents of Clara Town, a low-income neighbourhood of Monrovia, Liberia, face sanitation challenges with the onset of the rainy season. Credit: Travis Lupick/IPS

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Mar 19 2013 (IPS)

When the General Assembly unanimously adopted the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) back in 2000, water and sanitation were reduced to a subtext – never a stand-alone goal compared with poverty and hunger alleviation.

Now, as the United Nations begins the process of formulating a new set of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for its post-2015 agenda, there is a campaign to underscore the importance of water and sanitation, so that the world body will get it right the second time around.

Ambassador Csaba Korosi of Hungary, whose government will host an international water summit in the capital of Budapest in October, says, “Sustainable development goals for water should be designed in order to avoid the looming global water crisis.”

Speaking to reporters last week, Hungary’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations said water resources have remained virtually unchanged for nearly 1,000 years.

“But the number of users have since increased by about 8,000 times,” he said.

With global food production projected to increase 80 percent by 2030 – and with 70 percent of water consumption flowing into the agricultural sector – Korosi said 2.5 billion people will very soon live in areas of water scarcity.

Addressing the Special Thematic Session of the General Assembly on Water and Disasters last week, Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson was blunt: “We must address the global disgrace of thousands of people who die every day in silent emergencies caused by dirty water and poor sanitation.”

The theme of the Budapest water summit, scheduled for early October, will be “The Role of Water and Sanitation in the Global Sustainable Development Agenda.”

The summit will be preceded by a High-Level International Conference on Water Cooperation in Tajikistan in August and World Water Week sponsored by the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI) in Sweden in September, plus several regional summits and conferences in Asia, Africa and Latin America.

The meetings take place at a time when the General Assembly has declared 2013 the International Year of Water Cooperation – and even as the United Nations commemorates World Water Day next Friday.

Torgny Holmgren, SIWI’s executive director, told IPS that in a survey of U.N. member states on priority areas for post-2015 goals, food, water and energy were “a distinct top trio”.

For a second year in a row, he said, the water supply crisis was also among the top three global risks in the yearly survey by World Economic Forum in Switzerland.

“We are also seeing how water issues are being prioritised by actors outside of the traditional water community, most significantly from the food and energy sectors,” said Holmgren, a former ambassador and head of the Department of Development Policy at the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Amidst all this, he said, there is significant talking and thinking going on to develop new ambitions that will support the movement towards a sustainable and desirable world for all the so-called post-2015 development agenda.

“I am optimistic that the newfound awareness about the importance of water will be converted into far-reaching goals and targets on water as a resource, as a right and as a service,” said Holmgren.

John Sauer, head of external relations at Water for People, told IPS the United Nations took an important step to make water and sanitation a human right through a General Assembly resolution (64/292) in 2010.

Despite this effort, he said, its work to ensure lasting and affordable water and sanitation service delivery must evolve and innovate to meet the immensity of this challenge.

“As the U.N. shifts attention to the post MDG goal of universal coverage, monitoring should shift to ongoing service delivery,” he said.

This is critical to prevent the large number of projects that presently fail, Sauer noted.

“This means looking beyond projects funded, and beneficiaries reached, and instead looking at systematic capacity building within government, civil society and the private sector institutions. This also means creating stronger partnerships,” he said.

“If the U.N. could better demonstrate their impact, for example, by using indicators to show capacity built, this would be progress in the right direction.”

Together with non-governmental organisations (NGOs), the U.N. must rise to the occasion and increase transparency to reveal the true impact of their operations, he added.

Asked about the role of international organisations in resolving the impending global water crisis, Richard Greenly, president of Water4, had a different take.

He told IPS that organisations like the U.N. will always have little to no effect on the growing crisis in water and sanitation.

“But it is not for lack of very good intentions or much effort,” he added. “The fact is, we as a civilisation cannot give or grant another country into prosperity and health.”

It has never worked in the history of the world and it will not ever work in the water and sanitation crisis, he added. Every developed country paid for their own water development by developing water businesses, he argued.

“Commerce is the way out of poverty and although the U.N. is well-meaning, sustainable water development must be put in the hands of local citizens to solve their own water issues.”

What these people desperately need from the U.N. is the opportunity to develop their own water resources, he added.

Rather than a 10,000 dollar “donated” borehole or even 10,000 donated boreholes, they need the opportunity to develop their own way out like non-profit organisation Water4 (www.water4.org), which gives people the opportunity to hand drill water wells as a business for one-tenth the cost of a mechanised rig.

“This will allow rapid sustainable gains in the world water crisis,” Greenly argued.

SIWI’s Holmgren told IPS, “I am also seeing clear indications of both the need for and the openness to new collaborations and ideas.”

He said the post-2015 goals are being discussed as inclusively as our electronic means of communication permits. “We do see more cooperation emerging between governments, the private sector, academia and civil society.”

He said there are even cases where common ground for collaboration for a more water-wise world is found between competitors.

“It is of course most fitting that all these efforts are emerging during the International Year of Water Cooperation, and we at SIWI look forward to contributing even further towards improved cooperation and more concrete outcomes through the World Water Week on the same theme in September in Stockholm,” he added.