How to Solve the Water Challenges in the Middle East and North Africa, the World’s Most Water-Scarce Region
Q&A with Pasquale Steduto this World Water Week
Q: What is the link between water scarcity and fragile environments marked by conflict and displacement?
Fragility has become the reality in several countries of the Middle East and North Africa. Armed conflict and forced displacement are taking an enormous toll on human lives, with the region accounting for about 60 percent of the estimated global total of battle-related casualties since the turn of the millennium.
Fragility also exacerbates the region’s water problems. Even before the recent political turmoil, several countries in the Middle East and North Africa were struggling to manage their water resources sustainably and efficiently and to expand coverage of water supply and sanitation services. Now conflict combined with some institutional obstacles has contributed to an intensification of water challenges and a deterioration of water services.
For example, in Syria – once one of the region’s top Millennium Development Goals performers – the recent conflict has pushed more than 3 million people into poverty.
Deteriorating access to water and sanitation services has led to increased incidence of waterborne diseases. As a result, the mortality rate of children under five due to diarrhea has increased threefold since the start of the conflict.
In Yemen, over 10 million people, about 46 percent of the total population, are considered to be food insecure, and about 12 million people lack access to safe water or sanitation.
Failure to find solutions to water challenges aggravates fragility. Water crises strain the ability of individuals and societies to maintain livelihood security and political stability. We need to break this vicious circle to ensure recovery, peace, food and water security and sustainable development in the region.
Q: What needs to happen to better address water-related challenges, especially in countries affected by conflict and displacement?
Where conflicts begin to dissipate, the restoration of basic water and sanitation services should become a priority. In the recovery phase, water for agriculture is important as it provides for people’s livelihoods.
Addressing water and fragility challenges requires combining an immediate response to people’s basic needs with a long-term approach aimed at building resilience to shocks and protracted crises. The latter should rely on sustainable, efficient and equitable water resources management and service delivery.
Investment in innovative policies and practices is also pivotal as research, technology development and transfer can provide further improvements to water efficiency and crop productivity in the region. It can also greatly increase the resilience of rainfed agricultural systems, for instance by promoting land conservation and reclamation practices.
More importantly, working together within countries and across boundaries is essential. Collective action and partnerships are essential given the scale and commonality of the challenges, the relatively small size of many of the countries in the region and the transboundary nature of important issues like climate change and shared water resources.
Q: What is FAO doing to address water scarcity in the region? Could you give us some examples?
FAO’s Water Scarcity Regional Initiative (WSI) supports countries in the region to strategically plan their water resource management and allocation, review their water, food security and energy policies, formulate effective investment plans, modernize governance and institutions, account for transboundary surface and ground water and adopt good agricultural practices.
One FAO project in Yemen is helping farmers take advantage of dam water to improve sustainability and give women more opportunities to participate in decision-making processes.
FAO has been supporting the establishment and reorganization of more than 35 Water User Associations in the capital Sanaa to better regulate water consumption, helping them with funding, equipment. In the process, these associations provide space for new thinking like resolving tribal disputes over water.
The Sanaa Basin Project is an example of how FAO supports different types of activities – aimed not only at meeting the immediate food and nutrition needs of millions of Yemenis, but also facilitating projects that can positively impact the restoration of the country’s overall agriculture infrastructure.
Another FAO project in the West Bank and Gaza Strip focused on supporting efficient irrigation systems and addressed poor management and inefficient use of water resources by repairing damaged irrigation systems. This has improved access to clean water for irrigation and put an end to social conflicts over water usage.
FAO’s project rehabilitated more than 30 water conveyance systems in the West Bank, improving the efficiency of almost 150 kilometers of water piping for domestic and agricultural use.
As a result, farmers once again could access sufficient water, ensuring equitable distribution. Water loss through leakages was eliminated and the use of untreated wastewater for irrigation purposes was curbed.
The project has enabled around 200 farming families in An-Nassariyeh to increase their production, cut costs and avoid using unsafe contaminated water.
In addition to mitigating social, economic and environmental impacts on communities, the pipe rehabilitation work led to the creation of seasonal jobs for at least 2,000 agricultural workers in the West Bank.
*SOURCE: FAO – The UN Food and Agriculture Organization. Go to ORIGINAL. 2018 Human Wrongs Watch
Source: https://human-wrongs-watch.net/2018/08/30/how-to-solve-the-water-challenges-in-the-middle-east-and-north-africa-the-worlds-most-water-scarce-region/
