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Mar 26, 2017 APNU Column, Features / Columnists
Water security can be defined as the ability to access sufficient quantities of clean water to maintain adequate standards of food and goods production, proper sanitation, and sustainable health care.
Water, in absolute terms, is not in short supply planet-wide. But, according to the United Nations water organization, UN-Water, the total usable freshwater supply for ecosystems and humans is less than one percent of all freshwater resources.
Water use has been growing at more than twice the rate of the population increase in the last century. Specifically, water withdrawals are predicted to increase by 50 percent by 2025 in developing countries, and 18 per cent in developed countries.
By 2025, 800 million people will be living in countries or regions with absolute water scarcity, and two-thirds of the world population could be under stress conditions.
Many may ask what we can do to alleviate this situation. First, we can manage our water better: take better care of our water resources, clean up the water that mankind has polluted, and improve upon current water purification technologies clean water access systems.
For example: in developing countries, 70 percent of industrial waste is dumped untreated into waters where it pollutes the usable water supply. Many pollutants in industrial waste, and those in water produced by mining and oil and gas operations, have been proven to cause immediate and chronic illnesses, birth defects, and immediate or eventual death in human populations. These pollutants have also affected crops and livestock, frequently destroying both.
This practice of dumping industrial, mining and oil and gas waste and “produced water” from those processes should be eliminated, and the polluted water should be cleaned up.
Access to safe water and sanitation is now a fundamental human right. But water management also requires realistic ways of recovering delivery costs. An agreed definition of water security is vitally important in that context.
Many observers have identified water as an urgent security issue. Few issues, therefore, have the potential to create friction more than the management of water shared across international borders, especially now with serious scarcity problems on the horizon.
In its analytical brief, UN-Water echoed its support for including water security on the UN Security Council agenda.
The brief also calls for:
· Recognition of the need to include water security in the formulation of the Sustainable Development Goals;
· A supportive policy environment, including innovative financial mechanisms to achieve water security;
· Increases in capacity development on a wide range of needs, from human to financial, institutional, technological and service provisioning.
By formally including water security on its agenda, the Council would recognize the direct impact of water on human security issues: either as a trigger, a potential target, or a contributing factor. Such recognition would acknowledge that water insecurity poses serious risk and that water security could contribute to achieving increased regional peace and security in the long term.
KEY ASPECTS OF WATER SECURITY
A summary of core elements needed to achieve and maintain water security, synthesized from a broad range of sources, include:
· Access to safe and sufficient drinking water at an affordable cost in order to meet basic needs, including sanitation and hygiene, and safeguard health and levels of well-being;
· Protection of livelihoods, human rights, and cultural and recreational values;
· Preservation and protection of ecosystems in water allocation and management systems in order to maintain their ability to deliver and sustain functioning of essential ecosystem services;
· Water supplies for socio-economic development and activities (such as energy, transport, industry, tourism);
· Collection and treatment of used water to protect human life and the environment from pollution;
· Collaborative approaches to trans-boundary water resources management within and between countries to promote freshwater sustainability and cooperation;
· The ability to cope with uncertainties and risks of water-related hazards, such as floods, droughts and pollution, among others; and,
· Good governance and accountability, and the due consideration of the interests of all stakeholders through: appropriate and effective legal regimes; transparent, participatory and accountable institutions; properly planned, operated and maintained infrastructure; and capacity development.
· In December 2016, the United Nations General Assembly unanimously adopted the resolution “International Decade (2018-2028) for action – Water for Sustainable Development”, to help put a greater focus on water during the next ten years.
Emphasizing that water is critical for sustainable development and the eradication of poverty and hunger, UN Member States expressed deep concern over the lack of access to safe drinking water, sanitation and hygiene and over water-related disasters, scarcity and pollution being exacerbated by urbanization, population growth, desertification, drought and climate change.
The new Decade will focus on the sustainable development and integrated management of water resources for the achievement of social, economic and environmental objectives and on the implementation and promotion of related programmes and projects, as well as on the furtherance of cooperation and partnership at all levels in order to help to achieve internationally agreed water-related goals and targets, including those contained in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
In the resolution, UN Member States invited the Secretary-General, with the support of UN-Water, to take appropriate steps, within existing resources, to plan and organize the activities of the Decade at the global, regional and country levels. To set the agenda in motion, UN-Water, in its 26th meeting in Geneva in February 2017, decided on the establishment of a Task Force to facilitate its support to the planning and organisation.
The Decade will commence on World Water Day 22 March 2018, and terminate on World Water Day, 22 March 2028.
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