Blessed and cursed by water

IPS: …In 2008, the United Nations (U.N.) International Year of Sanitation, it is estimated that 2.16 billion people in developing countries lack that most basic of amenities -- a proper toilet. They do not have water conveniently pumped in and out of their homes for use in flush toilets. Many have no choice but to relieve themselves in ditches, behind the house, down the road, or at any other 'convenient' location.

The result: "widespread damage to human health and child survival prospects; social misery especially for women, the elderly and infirm; depressed economic productivity and human development; pollution to the living environment and water resources," according to the U.N. report 'Tackling a global crisis'.

…"The question of poverty and underdevelopment will always be tied to the question of water," Terje Tvedt, professor at the University of Bergen, and a water and development expert, told IPS. Tvedt spoke on the sidelines of the conference on water and basic sanitation issues that was held by the World Bank and the Norwegian foreign ministry in Oslo May 20.

…The World Bank is one of the largest institutions working with water issues. Tvedt sees the World Bank-supported Nile Basin Initiative, which promotes cooperation between Nile countries in harnessing the river's resources, as an example of a "historically speaking highly interesting and potentially very positive" project. Another is the World Bank-brokered Indus Water Treaty between Pakistan and India from 1960, which resolved a dispute over border-crossing rivers.

…This challenge is greater in South Asia than in Africa, according to Grey. "In South Asia people like to be consulted, they like to understand and to be involved. To have the state developing water resources without that consultation almost always creates tension and objection to development," he remarked….

Surface waves of water, a beautiful image by Roger McLassus, Wikimedia Commons, under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation license, Version 1.2