|
Water war prospects
Editorial
THE major water problem in Guyana is getting potable supplies to thousands in communities where acquiring drinking and cooking water means mainly women and children trudging daily with containers between home and the nearest source. It may not seem so to those faced with that daunting daily drudgery but Guyana can count itself among the fortunate when according to latest statistics, nearly a billion people in 50 countries live with severe shortages of water. An article in Newsweek magazine by Pranay Gupte, Editor and Publisher of `The Earth Times', puts the situation in grim perspective. It reports Klaus Toepfer, head of the United Nations Environment Programme, as saying that women and girls in developing countries spend more than 10 million person-years in the aggregate each year fetching water from distant, and frequently polluted, sources. According to Gupte, the World Bank calculates that 3.3 billion people in the 127 countries of the developing world suffer from water-related diseases, among them diarrhoea, schistosomiasis, dengue fever, infection by intestinal worms, malaria, river blindness (onchocerciasis) and trachoma (which alone causes almost six million cases of blindness annually). Deaths from water-related diseases are almost six million a year. Gupte reports more statistics compiled by the United Nations University in Tokyo about the gathering global water crisis: ** every eight seconds, a child dies from a water-related disease. ** More than 50 per cent of people in developing countries suffer from one or more water-related diseases. ** Eighty per cent of diseases in the developing world are caused by contaminated water. ** Fifty per cent of people on earth lack adequate sanitation. ** Twenty per cent of freshwater fish species have been pushed to the edge of extinction from contaminated water. "Unfortunately, such statistics don't seem to be persuasive enough for world leaders to act expeditiously, or meaningfully, on water-management issues", Gupte says. The writer adds: "The glaring lack of attention to water issues seems especially puzzling in light of the fact that the estimated cost to provide safe water in rural areas is US$50 per person per year and about US$100 per person in cities, according to U.N. estimates." "...as development mandarins fashion their strategies for the new millennium, water-management issues must be considered in tandem with housing, health and social development", Gupte argues. According to the writer, as much of the developing world becomes urbanised, its water crisis will deepen. "And as urban demands for water increase, supply for the developing world's already water-starved agricultural areas will be further affected, thereby creating a potentially monumental food-security crisis", the article points out. Gupte says that according to the U.N., the world's water supply is not sufficient for today's global population, and there's the prospect of a period of "water wars" between nations. Guyana, usually called the `Land of many waters', now has far better reason to preciously guard its bountiful gifts from nature. Those in charge of its development chart will do well to bear in mind the chilling prospects so many millions of others face in other countries not so well endowed.
|