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Congressional Hearing: Clean Water Access Is a Global Crisis, Human Right, and National Security Issue
›March 17, 2011 // By Hannah MarquseeUnsafe drinking water causes nearly 1.8 million deaths each year from diarrhea, “a number that dwarfs the casualties associated with violent conflict,” said U.S. Representative James McGovern at a congressional human rights commission hearing earlier this month on water as a basic right. Nearly all of these deaths are children under the age of five, he said. “This is a war against families, children, and women on an ongoing basis,” said Representative Earl Blumenauer, also speaking at the hearing, titled “Realizing the Right to Safe Water and Sanitation.”
There are currently 884 million people in the world without access to safe drinking water, according to UNICEF, and 2.6 billion without improved sanitation. As population growth and climate change place added stress on fresh-water systems, by 2025, two thirds of the world’s population will live in water-stressed conditions, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization. “This is a severe global crisis,” said McGovern.
“A Human Right”
With 2011 World Water Day only weeks away, the hearing harkened back to Secretary Clinton’s widely quoted statement from World Water Day 2010, marking a commitment by the Obama administration to address global water issues:It’s not every day you find an issue where effective diplomacy and development will allow you to save millions of lives, feed the hungry, empower women, advance our national security interests, protect the environment, and demonstrate to billions of people that the United States cares. Water is that issue.
Four months after that statement, the UN passed a resolution to make access to water and sanitation a human right, not just a development priority. Said Catarina de Albuquerque, a UN independent expert who testified at this month’s congressional hearing, the resolution stipulates that water must be “available, accessible, affordable, acceptable and safe.” A “right to water” is an important “sign of political will,” that will place increased obligations on governments to improve access to water and sanitation, she said. But in the meantime, for the millions without access to safe water, “there is no change.”
According to the UN, the world is on track to meet the Millennium Development Goal target of halving the number of people without access to an improved water source by 2015. But de Albuquerque noted that the reality is not quite so optimistic. On a UN fact-finding mission, she encountered at least one family who by UN definitions had access to an “improved drinking water source,” yet their tap water was literally black. “Water quality is not being monitored” and for many of the people who do have access, it is simply “undrinkable,” she said.
In developed countries as well, there are significant barriers to access, especially for marginalized communities. On a recent mission to the United States, de Albuquerque found that America’s “voiceless” – people of color, Native Americans, and the homeless – face significant discrimination in access to water. “Society closes its eyes to them,” she said. Thirteen percent of Native Americans lack access to safe water, in comparison to 0.6 percent of non-native Americans, she said in a statement to the press releasing her findings. And in Boston, “for every one percent increase in the city ward’s percentage of people of color, the number of threatened cut-offs increases by four percent.” To make the necessary improvements to fill these gaps in America’s aging water infrastructure would cost $4 to $6 billion annually, she said.
A National Security Issue
Water “is a security issue as well as a human development issue,” said Blumenauer. Since, according to UNEP, 40 percent of the world relies on river basins that share two or more political boundaries, water management has enormous potential for both conflict and cooperation. Echoing Clinton’s World Water Day statement, McGovern championed the cross-cutting nature of water:The right to water is inextricably linked with other basic rights…including the right to food, the right to health, and the right to education.
The burden of collecting water in underdeveloped countries often creates a gender gap and exposes women and girls to violence and rape, he said. And it “has been the basis for many territorial and violent disputes between various peoples and even nations.”
Last month, a staff report by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee expressed a similar sentiment with the publication of their report, Avoiding Water Wars: Water Scarcity and Central Asia’s Growing Importance for Stability in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The report commends the Obama administration for recognizing the importance of water: “For the first time, senior government officials are recognizing the critical role that sound water management must play in achieving our foreign policy goals and in protecting our national security.” However, by exclusively focusing on Pakistan and Afghanistan’s water issues and “neglecting the interconnectivity of water issues between Central and South Asia, the U.S. approach could exacerbate regional tensions,” the report says.
To be more strategic about water assistance, the report recommends the United States: (1) provide technical support in data collection to better manage water; (2) help increase water efficiency and reduce demand for water; (3) recognize the transboundary nature of water issues and “provide holistic solutions;” and (4) “safeguard institutions against shocks to water supply and demand.”
Moving Forward
The Obama administration’s commitment to water issues, the UN’s recognition of water as a human right, and the 2005 Water for the Poor Act have all been important steps towards fulfilling the pledge of making access to safe water a human right. “We’ve come a long way,” Blumenauer (who authored the Water for the Poor Act) said at the hearing, but there is still significant work ahead.
“We’re going to have to be more strategic moving forward” in order to meet global water shortages, said Aaron Salzberg, special coordinator for water resources for the U.S. Department of State who testified at the hearing. Salzberg recommended that the U.S. government take steps to integrate water management with the food and health sectors; build political will; mobilize financial support; promote science and technology; and form partnerships with other governments and aid organizations. The United States must also “be smarter” about allocating funds based on the dual criteria of “need” and “opportunity.” Balancing efforts with partners to find out which countries have the greatest need and the least resources will allow limited U.S. funds to make the deepest impact, he said.
John Oldfield, managing director of the WASH Advocacy Initiative, urged Congress to increase funding for foreign assistance, continue appropriations for the Water for the Poor Act, and improve the effectiveness of existing water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) assistance. “Each dollar invested in water and sanitation leads to an 8:1 return from reduced healthcare costs and time savings,” he said. “The world does not need to bury millions more of its children in the coming years when we know how to prevent waterborne disease today.”
Sources: FAO, UNEP, UNICEF, United Nations, WHO.
Image Credit: Adapted from “School girl drinks water from new handpump,” courtesy of flickr user waterdotorg. -
Congressional Report on Avoiding “Water Wars” in Afghanistan and Pakistan
›March 15, 2011 // By Schuyler Null“Water plays an increasingly important role in our diplomatic and national security interests in [Central and South Asia], and we must ensure that our approach is carefully considered and coordinated across the interagency,” begins a new staff briefing, Avoiding Waters Wars: Water Scarcity and Central Asia’s Growing Importance for Stability in Afghanistan and Pakistan, prepared for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “As water demand for food production and electricity generation increases, in part as a result of the quickening pace of climate change, so too must our efforts to provide water security,” write the authors.
The report focuses mainly on Afghanistan and Pakistan but also considers “the interests in the shared waters by India and the neighboring five Central Asian countries – Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Turkmenistan.”
ECSP is cited twice in the report, both from “Water Can Be a Pathway to Peace, Not War,” in ECSP Report 13:The Navigating Peace Initiative’s Water Conflict and Cooperation Working Group correctly summarized the current state of water use by saying, “water use is shifting to less-traditional sources such as deep fossil aquifers and wastewater reclamation. Conflict, too, is becoming less traditional, driven increasingly by internal or local pressures or, more subtly, by poverty and instability. These changes suggest that tomorrow’s water disputes may look very different from today’s.”
And again in breaking down the notion of impending water wars:Given the important role water plays in Central and South Asia as a primary driver of human insecurity, it is important to recognize that for the most part, the looming threat of so-called “water wars” has not yet come to fruition. Instead, many regions threatened by water scarcity have avoided violent clashes through discussion, compromise, and agreements. This is because “[w]ater – being international, indispensable, and emotional – can serve as a cornerstone for confidence building and a potential entry point for peace.”
USAID’s “Changing Glaciers and Hydrology in Asia: Addressing Vulnerabilities to Glacier Melt Impacts,” which was launched here at the Wilson Center last fall, also made an appearance:Central Asia and India face critical challenges in monitoring glaciers and tracking changes, particularly differences from year to year. As USAID’s report “Changing Glaciers and Hydrology in Asia: Addressing Vulnerabilities to Glacier Melt Impacts” noted, “[t]he review of scientific information about glacier melt in High Asia revealed, first and foremost, a lack of data and information, a lack that hampers attempts to project likely impacts and take action to adapt to changed conditions.” The United States should engage in collaborative glacier monitoring programs and those that develop local or sub-national water monitoring capacity.
The report concludes that “water scarcity, coupled with how governments address these challenges,” can either exacerbate conflict or promote cooperation in the region. It’s also worth noting that the authors specifically mention the links between increased water use and growing populations in the region, specifically with regard to India and Pakistan:With a population already exceeding 1.1 billion people and forecasts indicating continued growth to over 1.5 billion by 2035, India’s demand for water is rising at unprecedented rates.
The drive to meet energy and development demands from both countries has led to plans for extensive hydrological projects that could spark tensions between the two over the Indus Waters Treaty (which has withstood four Indo-Pakistani wars).
The authors praise the attention given to the matter thus far by the Obama administration, but they also write that “although it is still too early to determine the impacts of our efforts in the broader region, now is the time to begin evaluating water-related trends” at a more systematic level.
Sources: U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. -
Shannon Beebe, Los Angeles Times
Somali Piracy Shows How an Environmental Issue Can Evolve Into a Security Crisis
›March 14, 2011 // By Wilson Center StaffIt has become apparent that real piracy is far different from the lighthearted subject sometimes portrayed in popular culture, and the problem is growing much worse. Besides the tragic cost in lives, the United States, many other nations, and NATO spent roughly $2 billion combined last year to safeguard the busy international sea lanes off the Horn of Africa from Somali pirates. According to the International Maritime Bureau, “hijackings off the coast of Somalia accounted for 92 percent of all ship seizures last year,” and the price tag does not include the costs of reallocating critical military resources.
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What’s Behind Iraq’s Day of Rage? It’s Pretty Basic
›March 4, 2011 // By Schuyler NullIraq’s “Day of Rage” – a phenomenon that has swept the Middle East since Tunisia’s “Jasmine Revolution” – reportedly claimed the lives of nearly 20 people last week. But though the protests may have been inspired by the current broader movement in the region, they are also a symptom of long-standing grievances ordinary Iraqis have had with their government since the American invasion, including lack of public services like access to clean water and especially, reliable electricity.
While these protests alone are unlikely to lead to revolution, they reveal basic livelihood challenges that neither the United States nor the Maliki government have effectively addressed.
The protests in Baghdad and more than 10 other cities were the largest since last summer, when demonstrations over access to electricity led to the death of two protestors in Basra. The New Security Beat spoke to Iraq’s first Minister of the Environment, Mishkat Al Moumin, after those protests to ask her about the lack of services and Iraq’s other non-security challenges, including water security, women’s empowerment, and demographics. She said that decentralizing decision-making power might help alleviate pressure on the government and provide more effective local services:Enacting policies at the local level establishes a sense of ownership among local communities and provides them with an incentive to protect their environmental resources. Moreover, it provides a better opportunity to involve the main stakeholders in policymaking.
Frederick Burkle, senior public policy scholar at the Wilson Center and a senior fellow of the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative at the Harvard School of Public Health, recently cited the military’s failure to restore services, specifically public health services in Iraq, as something the State Department and USAID should seize on to justify the end of “militarized aid.” He pointed out that a 2004 joint report by the Iraqi Ministry of Health and Red Cross found more death and illness was due to the country’s decimated public health infrastructure and social protections than to the violence of war:These indirect deaths from war are preventable but require attention from the occupying powers to the invaded country’s declining public health, social, and physical protections. Iraqis were well aware of this deficiency, and the United States’ lack of attention to the matter led to the loss of lasting trust.
For more on Iraq, be sure to also check out The New Security Beat’s interview with Steve Lonergan, former head of Canada-Iraq Marshlands Initiative, on the state of the southern marshes and their potential for peacemaking.
Sources: Foreign Affairs, The New York Times.
Photo Credit: Adapted from “Tangle of electrical wires in Baghdad,” courtesy of flickr user News Hour (PBS News Hour – Larisa Epatko). -
Teaching Environment and Security at West Point
›February 16, 2011 // By Geoffrey D. DabelkoU.S. strategic assessments like the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review, the 2010 National Security Strategy, and the Director of National Intelligence’s annual threat assessment have placed natural resources, climate change, population, and poverty squarely on the American security agenda. But are these broad statements in doctrine and threat assessments translating into tangible changes, such as new approaches to the education of future military officers? My colleague Sean Peoples and I recently spoke with faculty and cadets at the U.S. Military Academy about how West Point’s Geography and Environmental Engineering Department is integrating these issues directly into their curriculum.
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Yemen’s Revolt Won’t Be Like Egypt or Tunisia
›February 15, 2011 // By Schuyler NullInspired by the success of the recent Tunisian and Egyptian revolts, another key state in the Middle East is under pressure from youth-led unrest: Yemen. Again the United States must decide whether to support a corrupt autocrat (albeit one that has been helpful in the war on terror) or face the uncertainty of life without. The Saleh regime in Yemen has been in power for three decades, but major protests led by multiple opposition groups have forced recent concessions, including agreement that neither President Ali Abdullah Saleh nor his son will run for re-election in 2013.
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Climate-Induced Migration: Catastrophe or Adaptation Strategy?
›February 11, 2011 // By Kayly OberThe claims on climate change-induced migration have often been hyperbolic: “one billion people will be displaced from now until 2050”, “200 million people overtaken by…monsoon systems…droughts…sea-level rise and coastal flooding”, “500 million people are at extreme risk” from sea-level rise. However, hard data is difficult to come by or underdeveloped. The International Institute of Environment and Development (IIED) have set out to fill this gap with their newest publication, “Not Only Climate Change: Mobility, Vulnerability and Socio-Economic Transformations in Environmentally Fragile Areas of Bolivia, Senegal and Tanzania.” As the title suggests, the author, Cecilia Tacoli, traveled to Bolivia, Senegal, and Tanzania in order to see how environmental change affects migration patterns in real world case studies. What she found was a bit more nuanced than the headlines.
Case Studies: Bolivia, Senegal, and Tanzania
Despite existing predictions of doom and gloom, the report found that there has been no dramatic change in mobilization in each community, even in the face of recurring droughts. Instead, those who rely heavily on agriculture for subsistence have turned to seasonal or temporary migration. While previously considered a last resort, moving locally from rural to urban areas has become more common. The motivation for following this option, however, seems to be couched more in socio-economic concerns and only marginally exacerbated by the environment.
“All the case study locations,” writes Tacoli, “are in areas affected by long-term environmental change (desertification, soil degradation, deforestation) rather than extreme weather events. However, in the majority of locations residents identify a precipitating event – a particularly severe drought, an epidemic of livestock disease, the unintended impact of infrastructure – as the tipping point that results in drastic changes in local livelihoods. In all cases, socio-economic factors are what make these precipitating environmental events so catastrophic.”
Practical Policy Prescriptions
Although the report finds that the environment wasn’t currently the main driver of migration in Bolivia, Senegal, or Tanzania, it acknowledges that it may play a larger role in the future: “Environmental change undoubtedly increases the number of people mobile,” Tacoli told BBC News. “But catastrophe like droughts and floods tend to overlap with social and structural upheaval, like the closure of other sources of local employment that might have protected people against total dependence on the land.”
As such, Tacoli suggests treating migration as a practical adaptation strategy rather than a problem. “The concentration of population in both large and small urban centers has the potential to reduce pressure on natural resources for domestic and productive uses,” she writes.
For example, Tacoli argues that the resulting remittances and investments from migrants in urban centers fuel “a crucial engine of economic growth” in smaller towns where land prices are cheaper. This, in turn, creates further employment opportunities.
The report also encourages policymakers to focus on local interventions, such as ensuring more equitable access to land, promoting the sustainable management of natural resources to reduce vulnerability, and investing in education, access to roads, and transportation to markets. These programs would help diversify and bolster non-agricultural livelihoods, thus reducing to the risks of climate variability.
“Local non-farm activities,” writes Tacoli, “can be an important part of adaptation to climate change for the poorer groups, and the nature of the activities can contribute to a relative reduction in local environmental change.”
Avoiding Backlash
Tacoli points out that “by downplaying political and socio-economic factors in favor of an emphasis on environmental ones, alarmist predictions of climate change-induced migration can result in inappropriate policies, for example forced resettlement programmes, that will do little to protect the rights of those vulnerable to environmental change.”
However, Tacoli is careful not to over-extend her policy prescriptions. In an email to the New Security Beat she emphasized that the case studies were not intended to be representative:The emphasis is on the need to have a detailed understanding of the local context – socio-economic, cultural and political – to understand the impacts of climate change on migration and mobility…Generalizations are not usually helpful for policy-making, and a grounded understanding of the local factors that influence livelihood responses (of which mobility and migration are one aspect) is certainly a better starting point. The aim of the report is to contribute to the building of collective knowledge on these issues, rather than provide a definitive account.
Sources: BBC News, Christian Aid, Commission on Climate Change and Development, Global Humanitarian Forum, Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe.
Photo Credit: “Villager in Tanzania,” courtesy of flickr user vredeseilanden. -
The International Framework for Climate-Induced Displacement
›In an article sponsored by the East-West Center, author Maxine Burkett discusses the challenges climate-induced migration presents to the people of the Pacific Islands. In the brief, titled “In Search of Refuge: Pacific Islands, Climate-Induced Migration, and the Legal Frontier,” Burkett states that millions of people in the Pacific Islands will be forced to leave their homes because of “increased intensity and frequency of storms and floods, sea-level rise, and desertification.” These low-lying islands could face a loss of agriculture and freshwater resources, or even be wiped out altogether, an outcome for which there is no international legal precedent.
In “Swimming Against the Tide: Why a Climate Displacement Treaty is Not the Answer,” published in the International Journal of Refugee Law, Jane McAdam takes a different position on the plight of so-called “climate refugees.” McAdam argues that focusing on an international treaty for these migrants distracts from efforts to establish responses for adaptation, internal migration, and migration over time. The article, writes the author, “does not deny the real impacts that climate change is already having on communities,” but rather questions the utility and political consequences of “pinning ‘solutions’ to climate change-related displacement on a multilateral instrument.”
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