Every day, around the globe, nearly 4,000 children die from
waterborne diseases. That is 166 children every hour, nearly three per
minute. More than one billion people lack clean drinking water, and more
than 2.5 billion lack adequate sanitation. Those numbers tell the
story: while increased attention has been paid lately to a "coming water
crisis", for many, that crisis has already come.
For
Arab countries, water scarcity has certainly arrived. Middle East and
North African states have the least renewable water supply per capita of
any region, and are considered to be one of the highest "water stress"
regions in the world. With some 5 per cent of the globe's population,
the Arab world has less than 1 per cent of the world's fresh water. For a
region rich in other natural resources, water is not one of them.
This
brewing water crisis will have diverse effects in different countries,
ranging from the possibility of near-term humanitarian crises in Yemen
and drought-affected North African countries, to the long-term slowing
of development in the GCC.
The GCC countries are also overly reliant on others for their food security. According to an official UAE white paper
prepared for the G20 summit in Cannes last year, the UAE imports 85 per
cent of its food. Food security is tied up with weather patterns,
rainfall and water access issues around the world.
The GCC
countries, however, have the financial resources to sustain this
over-reliance in the short-term. For North African countries such as
Egypt, also reliant on others for their food security but with less of a
financial cushion, rising food prices pose serious risks of
instability.
Indeed, in the five years preceding the fall of Hosni
Mubarak, Egypt experienced three rounds of food price spikes. Anger at
food inflation fed the multiple streams of resentments fuelling the
uprisings.
Water is more than just life-giving nourishment or a
vital ingredient of oxygen-producing ecosystems and the food we eat. It
also fuels the global economy. All sources of electricity and energy
require water in their production processes.
Indeed, a senior executive
of a major western oil and gas company accurately observed: "All energy
companies are also, by default, water companies." With global energy
consumption rising, the demand for more water will increase.
The
Middle East is widely considered to be "high" or "extreme" in water
stress. Yemen's water situation is particularly stark, exacerbating the
many humanitarian crises the Arabian peninsula country faces: there are
currently 750,000 Yemeni children suffering from malnutrition, a
doubling in the past year.
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