Water Insecurity

Global water insecurity, or water scarcity, can be understood in several ways. UN Water defines water insecurity as, “The capacity of a population to safeguard sustainable access to adequate quantities of acceptable quality water for sustaining livelihoods, human well-being, and socio-economic development, for ensuring protection against water-borne pollution and water-related disasters, and for preserving ecosystems in a climate of peace and political stability.”.

Water security impacts most, if not all, aspects of life. From agriculture to food preparation to personal hygiene to public health to energy to cultural or religious activities and recreation, water touches all aspects of life. In this era of climate change, water can be life-affirming and life-destroying. Too much water at the wrong time or too quickly can cause unmanageable and devastating floods causing disease outbreaks, ruining crops, and destroying homes. Too little water can cause drought, desertification, and increased conflict for scarce resources. Increased coefficients of variation (differing from the average) can cause crops to be ruined by surprise rainfalls following a harvest or poor harvests due to less rainfall than normal.

Most horrifyingly, every 90 seconds a child under 5 years old dies because of lack of access to clean water and sanitation.

The Water-Energy-Food (WEF) nexus is of particular interest to development practitioners as we view these issues not as siloed but as deeply interconnected. Issues in water security directly affect food and energy security.

Cultivating global water security requires a balance of localized action, led by local leaders with the global support of knowledge sharing and finance for improvements. COVID-19 will have deep impacts on long-term water security as budgets and policies are redirected from long-term water systems to immediate life-saving support. The complexity of the challenge of water security and its immediacy should not turn people away from this issue; on the contrary, solutions to water insecurity exist — it’s a matter of amplifying, connecting, and financing these solutions at a scale that will drive impactful change.