The worldwide problem for securing entry to wash water persists for about two billion folks and its demand retains rising. Past threatening our fundamental particular person human wants, this shortage additionally poses a danger to our collective prosperity and peace.

Right this moment, March 22, 2024, is the thirty first World Water Day, with the theme, “Leveraging water for peace”. Beneath the ‘World Water Evaluation Programme’, UNESCO led the event of the 2024 version of the flagship United Nations World Water Improvement Report, “Water for Prosperity and Peace” as part of UN Water (an interagency coordination mechanism on water and sanitation of 35 UN entities together with 48 different worldwide companions).

All through historical past, water has been a pivotal useful resource for a few of the best civilisations equivalent to people who arose across the Indus, the Nile, the Tigris and the Euphrates. However it is usually true that in these civilisations, conflicts arose on account of this useful resource, just like the effectively documented tensions between the Mesopotamian cities of Lagash and Umma. This battle, one of many oldest recognized wars in human historical past, centered round a fertile piece of land and water assets. Notably, this historic episode additionally yielded what is taken into account the world’s first peace treaty, the Treaty of Mesilim, recognised as one in all humanity’s oldest authorized paperwork.

Water diplomacy in a time of extremities

Right this moment, the world can be experiencing numerous meteorological extremities: from intense warmth waves to turbulent floods, magnifying issues in regards to the local weather disaster in addition to its persevering with implications over water insecurity. For instance, right here in India, the monsoon has turn out to be erratic through the years and brings with it main uncertainties for agriculture, which lies on the coronary heart of India’s $3 trillion economic system.

Throughout the added local weather change-related pressures we face, the world must foster improved cooperation over water-sharing and embrace common rules for Worldwide Water Regulation. By governing the usage of shared waters and inspiring the usage of water sustainably, we will attempt for higher water diplomacy — making water a power for peace.

The shared recognition that water is a crucial useful resource, with limitations in high quality and availability, necessitates collaborative governance to make sure efficient and equitable water allocation amongst nations, fostering regional stability and peace, and an understanding of the intricate relationships between water, local weather, and worldwide stability.

Water diplomacy additionally requires inclusive approaches, acknowledging the indigenous and native communities’ in depth cross-border networks, in addition to involving civil society and tutorial networks, who also can play an necessary function in facilitating political processes to stop, mitigate, and resolve water-related disputes.

This 12 months’s report additionally highlights a normal scarcity of water high quality knowledge globally and factors extra particularly to a outstanding urban-rural divide, discovering that “4 out of 5 folks missing at the very least fundamental consuming water companies reside in rural areas”.

Addressing rural India’s wants

Inside India, a complete of 70% of the agricultural inhabitants depends on water to run their households, the place agriculture stays the principal supply of livelihood. That is much more putting as we all know that agriculture additionally accounts for 70% of the overall freshwater use, globally.

With improved water accessibility, these variations could be erased, and elevated water investments within the rural areas have the potential for returning constructive outcomes — in well being, schooling and employment, to not point out fundamental human wants and dignity.

Within the agrarian sector, the environment friendly use of rising synthetic intelligence (AI) expertise within the conservation of water, starting from tackling crop and meals loss, to minimising chemical compounds and fertilizers, and saving water, is beginning to present that outputs which are each productive and sustainable could be enabled.

The difficulty of transboundary waters

The report reminds us {that a} “massive proportion of the world’s freshwater assets are in transboundary waters” together with in India. With its expansive landmass, India boasts a community of lengthy rivers, not solely serving its personal wants but additionally shared with its neighbours. And, but, within the South Asian area, the extent of water air pollution has worsened significantly in recent times, particularly the Meghna, Brahmaputra, Ganga and Indus, warns the 2024 report.

To unravel these issues, the world wants a complicated type of cross-border water governance, selling efficient and equitable water allocation amongst nations that share water assets. Out of UNESCO’s 194 member-states and 12 affiliate members, 153 nations could be categorized as water-sharing nations, and all transboundary waters account for 60% of the world’s freshwater flows.

Of those 153 nations, simply 24 have managed to achieve a 100% cooperation settlement on their shared waters, as per a 2021 UNESCO progress report on Sustainable Improvement Objective indicator 6.5.2 titled “Progress on transboundary water cooperation.”

Since time immemorial, we have now in fact made important progress in fostering peace; nevertheless, if freshwater runs scarce, it threatens our collective well-being and peace. That is additionally essential for the 2030 Agenda and attaining the SDGs. By transboundary cooperation on the sustainable administration of water, we will realise advantages throughout varied sectors together with well being, meals and vitality safety, safety from pure disasters, schooling, improved residing requirements, employment, financial improvement, and quite a few ecosystem companies.

Tim Curtis is the Director of UNESCO New Delhi Regional Workplace for South Asia and UNESCO Consultant to India (UNESCO New Delhi is a part of Crew UN in India)