Water scarcity will worsen in the coming decades, especially in cities if international cooperation in this area is not promoted, according to the United Nations report on the Development of Water Resources in the World, which warns that At present between 2,000 and 3,000 million people in the world suffer from lack of water.
The report, published by UNESCO on behalf of UN-Water, estimates that 26 percent of the world‘s population, some 2,000 million people, do not have drinking water while 46 percent, 4,600 million, lack access to sanitation. safely managed.
The work was disclosed this Wednesday at the United Nations Conference on Water 2023, which is being held in New York. Specifically, it alerts that between 2,000 and 3,000 million people suffer from water scarcity for at least one month a year, which poses serious risks to their livelihoods, particularly food security and access to electricity.
The global urban population suffering from water scarcity is projected to double, from 930 million in 2016 to 1.7-2.4 billion people in 2050. The increasing incidence of extreme and prolonged droughts is also stressing ecosystems, with dire consequences for plant and animal species.
“We are draining the lifeblood of humanity through vampiric overconsumption and unsustainable use and evaporating it through global warming,” warned UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, recalling that almost “three out of four natural disasters are related to Water”.
The director general of UNESCO, Audrey Azoulay, considers that it is “urgent” to establish solid international mechanisms to prevent the world water crisis from getting out of control, while the president of UN-Water and director general of the International Labor Organization, Gilbert F. Houngbo considered that “much remains to be done… Time is not on our side and it is our moment to make a difference.”
The document reflects that almost all interventions related to water imply some type of cooperation, since, for example, crops require shared irrigation systems or that supplying safe and affordable water to cities and rural areas is only possible through communal management. of the water supply and sanitation systems.
The report argues that cooperation between these urban and rural communities is essential to maintain both food security and farmers’ incomes.
Likewise, he admits that the management of international rivers and aquifers complicates things further, but cooperation in transboundary basins and aquifers brings “many benefits” beyond water security, including the opening of additional diplomatic channels, but only 6 of the world‘s 468 internationally shared aquifers are the subject of a formal cooperation agreement.
Among the most prominent shared benefits in the report are environmental services such as pollution control or the enrichment of biodiversity and opportunities to share data, information and co-financing.
For this reason, the document advocates inclusive stakeholder engagement that also fosters acceptance and ownership; By involving end users in the planning and implementation of water systems, it creates services that are better suited to the needs and resources of poor communities, and increases public acceptance and ownership.
As far as Latin America is concerned,He says that the management of water resources is “weak” despite the fact that extraction per inhabitant increased between 2000 and 2018 and recommends “high-level political support” for the initiatives.
At the local level, he criticizes the fact that most of the organizations that work with water resources continue to be “stationed” in their sector, particularly the supply of water for irrigation.
The report proposes more shared irrigation systems among farmers, cooperation between urban and rural communities, and water-energy-food interaction.
The combined effects of demographic growth, increased income and the expansion of cities will push the demand for water “exponentially” warned the UN at this conference, the first since Mar del Plata (Argentina) in 1977.
Although it does not give figures by region, the report ensures that, unlike in other parts of the world, water extraction in Latin America and the Caribbean increased between 2000 and 2018.
“These crises are not accidental, they are the product of our irrational forms and systems of consumption,” criticized the president of Bolivia, Luis Arce, at the opening of the conference, and they are “directly related to problems of poverty, inequality, and justice.”