| On the first official World Water Day, March 22, 1993, more than 21% of people worldwide lacked access to safe drinking water. Today, despite the investment of hundreds of billions dollars in water, sanitation, and hygiene, 2.2 billion people—or roughly 27% of the 8.1 billion people on the planet—still don't have access to safely managed drinking water. The water crisis is not just a human crisis, it's a planetary crisis, with freshwater ecosystems under immense threat. We must do better. The good news (yes, there is good news) is that awareness of water's centrality to stability, prosperity, and a healthy planet has only grown over the last three decades. Last week, our Water @ Wilson series spotlighted a new tool supported by USAID, MODSNOW, developed to provide real-time monitoring of Asia's snow cover and short term-forecasting of water availability in the region. At the event, three Ambassadors to the US from South and Central Asia spoke about the challenges their countries are facing when it comes to water security, and the importance of tools like MODSNOW for helping to inform more effective water resource management. The theme of this year's World Water Day is "Water for Peace." Without access to water, there can be no peace. But the opposite is also true: without peace, water will remain under threat. So today, on New Security Beat, we're exploring the weaponization of water through a closer look at Libya, Yemen, and Russia's aggression in Ukraine, and the importance of investing in climate-resilient and conflict-sensitive water systems. |
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