The United Nations World Water Development Report 2024 was published by UNESCO on behalf of UN-Water with the title of Water crises threaten world peace.
Key highlights
- The report highlights that tensions over water are exacerbating conflicts worldwide. According to the report, today 2.2 billion people still live without access to safely managed drinking water and 3.5 billion lack access to safely managed sanitation.
- The UN goal of ensuring this access for all by 2030 is therefore far from being attained, and there is reason to fear that these inequalities may continue to rise.
- Between 2002 and 2021 droughts affected more than 1.4 billion people.
- As of 2022, roughly half of the world’s population experienced severe water scarcity for at least part of the year, while one quarter faced ‘extremely high’ levels of water stress, using over 80% of their annual renewable freshwater supply.
- Water scarcity has consequences on social development, particularly for girls and women. In many rural areas, they are the primary water collectors, spending up to several hours a day on this task. Reduced access to water supply exacerbates this burden, which undermines women’s education, economic participation and safety.
- The lack of water security has also been identified as one of the drivers of migration.
- This water scarcity can increase the risk of conflict. In the Sahel region, wetland degradation – often due to ill-advised water development projects – has exacerbated local disputes over access to water and productive land, causing tensions.
- While approximately 40% of the world’s population lives in transboundary river and lake basins, only a fifth of countries have cross border agreements to jointly manage these shared resources equitably.
