World Water Day celebration ceremony

Coping with water scarcity

FAO, Rome, 22 March 2007

Your Royal Highness,
Eminence,
Distinguished Ministers,
Excellencies,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is an honour and great pleasure for me to welcome you in FAO to celebrate World Water Day 2007. Water is among the best examples of how the United Nations system is evolving into “One United Nations”—the cohesive force for progress and change that Member Nations have demanded in support to the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals.

Since January this year, FAO has been requested to chair UN-Water, the mechanism for coordination among the 24 United Nations Agencies, Funds and Programmes that have a significant role in tackling global water concerns. Accounting for more than 70 percent of all water withdrawal, agriculture plays a crucial role in the management of the world water resources. We therefore take it as an honour to significantly contribute to, and improve, the support the United Nations as a whole can provide to Member countries in addressing the issue of Coping with water scarcity, what many of us are considering the challenge of the 21 st Century.

Water scarcity: local crises of global dimension

Water scarcity affects all social and economic sectors. As population grows and development needs call for increased allocations of water for cities, agriculture and industries, the pressure on water resources intensifies, leading to tensions, conflicts among users, and excessive strain on the environment. The increasing stress on freshwater resources brought about by the ever-rising demand and growing pollution worldwide is of serious concern to all.

Although local in nature, the water crisis is a crisis of global dimension. In the last century, the world population has tripled, and water use has been growing at more than twice that rate. Today, some 2.8 billion people are affected by some form of water scarcity, and the number of regions affected by water shortages is on the rise. By 2025, two-thirds of the world population would live in countries affected by water scarcity. The situation will be exacerbated as rapidly growing cities place heavy pressure on local water resources. A global crisis need not stem from a single cause with widespread impact alone, but rather that it can be made up of an increasing number of similar local incidents across the globe. The water crisis is a case in point.

Water, poverty and food security

Water scarcity is first and foremost an issue linked to poverty. Unclean water and lack of sanitation are the destiny of poor people across the world. They affect poor children and families first, while the rest of the world’s population benefits from direct access to the water they need for domestic use. And the poor always pay more: people in the slums of developing countries typically pay for their water 5 to 10 times more than those who have access to piped water. For poor people, solving the water scarcity problem is about guaranteeing a fair and safe access to the water they need to sustain their lives.

But food security is also at stake, and it is in the rural areas of developing countries, where a large majority of households produce their own food, that water scarcity affects people most. Smallholder farmers, who make up the majority of the world’s rural poor, often occupy marginal lands and depend mainly on rainfall to sustain their livelihoods. They are highly sensitive to the vagaries of climate. Already compounded by long-standing problems of land degradation and desertification, they face the very real world of water scarcity.

To achieve food security in a world of scarce water, farmers must find ways to produce more food with proportionally less water. It takes 1 000 to 2 000 litres of water to produce one kilo of wheat, and 13 000 to 15 000 litres to produce the same quantity of grain-fed beef. By comparison, the amount of daily drinking water required by one person is estimated at a mere 2 to 5 litres. And yet each day, we “eat” on average 2 000 litres of water. Thus the effective daily consumption of water per person is 1 000 times more than the apparent consumption through drinking. Without water we cannot produce, and simply we cannot eat.

Water and food are not only essential elements for life, they are both universally recognized human rights, and when it comes to securing the necessary environment to be able to feed oneself, the right to water and the right to food are intrinsically linked.

Competition for water

Water scarcity induces competition for water between users, between sectors of the economy, and between countries and regions sharing a common resource, as is the case for international rivers. Many different interests are at stake, and equitable and sustainable solutions must be found. Water conflicts can arise in water stressed areas among local communities and between countries. The lack of adequate institutional and legal instruments for water sharing exacerbates already difficult conditions. In the absence of clear and well-established rules, chaos tends to dominate, and power plays an excessive role, leading to inequitable allocation of water. A greater focus is needed on the peaceful sharing and management of water at both international and local levels. In that regard, it is important to highlight that international food markets serve as a vehicle for transferring “virtual water” from food exporting water-abundant countries to food-importing water-scarce countries.

In addition, climate change, now a major international issue, is expected to account for about 20 percent of the global increase in water scarcity. Countries that already suffer from water shortages will be hit hardest. The impact of a changing climate will not only affect water availability but also worsen the extremes of droughts and floods. And even the increasing interest in bioenergy, if not well monitored, could result in further burden on scarce water resources.

The way forward - we can do much better

Water plays a key role in achieving most of the Millennium Development Goals, including hunger and extreme poverty reduction, universal education, empowerment of women, improved health, environmental sustainability, and advancing partnership for development. A judicious management of increasingly scarce resources is needed if those goals are to be reached. With 2015 looming, concrete and responsible actions must be taken soonest. Progress remains too slow, and the number of hungry people in the world has stagnated around 850 million.

There are great opportunities to improve the ability of poor people to lift themselves out of poverty under conditions of greater water security and sustainability. With the right incentives and investments to mitigate risks for individual farmers, improving water control in agriculture holds considerable potential to increase food production and reduce poverty, while ensuring the maintaining of ecosystem services. Interventions need to be tailored to national and regional characteristics. In the short-term, small-scale water harnessing, irrigation and drainage works carried out at rural community level with local labour are a priority. Their cost is low, their technology is simple and their maintenance is easy. In the medium-term, well targeted investments in rural infrastructure, particularly small scale water control facilities, the upgrading of larger scale facilities and associated institutional reforms, can boost rural productivity and develop local economies. Longer-term actions include the responsible and sustainable management of large river basins, for the benefit of economies as a whole.

Conclusion

The potential exists to provide adequate and sustainable supply of quality water for all, today and in the future. But there is no room for complacency, and it is our common responsibility to take the challenge of today’s global water crisis and address it in all of its aspects and dimensions.

At the international level, countries need to increase their cooperation in dealing with the management of transboundary water, focusing on negotiations and dialogue and on the quest to optimize the overall social and economic benefits of equitable and sustainable water use. At the national level, policies and institutions need adapting in order to address competing uses in a fair and equitable way. At the local level, besides investments in water control facilities, better management practices are needed in all fields, leading to increased sustainability and equity in access to water. At all three levels, the development of effective conflict-resolution mechanisms has become increasingly important. Together with its partners in UN-Water, FAO is committed to assist Member Nations in reaching these objectives.

Thank you.

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