Water Affirmative

Water Affirmative Georgia Novice2007 - 2008 0 of 33

Index

Explanation__________________________________________________________________________________________________1

1ac_________________________________________________________________________________________________________2

TopicalityTopicality – water = public health assistance_______________________________________________________________________13

InherencyInherency – Africa suffering____________________________________________________________________________________14Inherency – current efforts insufficient___________________________________________________________________________15

Conflict Advantage ExtensionsWater War Risk is high________________________________________________________________________________________16African Water Tensions ↑ now__________________________________________________________________________________17Water conflicts escalate_______________________________________________________________________________________18H20 Scarcity global wars____________________________________________________________________________________19Water solutions peace over other issues________________________________________________________________________20A2 – won’t happen – history / food / interdependence________________________________________________________________21

Disease Advantage ExtensionsWater Diseases –in SSA____________________________________________________________________________________22Water Diseases - #1 killer______________________________________________________________________________________23Water Diseases – threaten humanity______________________________________________________________________________24Clean H20 ↓ diseases_________________________________________________________________________________________25Sanitation↓ diseases__________________________________________________________________________________________26

Solvency ExtensionsUS action is good____________________________________________________________________________________________27Plan = Coordination & expertise________________________________________________________________________________28Plan solves conflicts__________________________________________________________________________________________29Solving Scarcity solves conflicts________________________________________________________________________________30Local participation solves______________________________________________________________________________________31A2 – not enough water exists___________________________________________________________________________________32A2 – water is depleting________________________________________________________________________________________33

0


Explanation

History/Inherency:The water for the poor act was passed in 2005. It was a congressional act that stated a U.S. commitment to combating water scarcity problems throughout the world. It currently has two major problems. 1st – a majority of the money and focus has gone towards the Mid-East and Northern Africa. This means it is being referred to as an ‘unfunded mandate’ or a law that passed but hasn’t been supported through money or political commitment. The plan calls for a commitment to providing water sanitation via funding and implementing the water for the poor act specifically for Sub-Saharan Africa.

Solvency:What is the Water for the Poor Act? It is a funding commitment to look for water solutions throughout the continent. So, if they need sanitation technology the water for the poor act would do that. If they need irrigation assistance the water for the poor act would do that. If they need education about water conservation the water for the poor act would do that. The plan doesn’t specify a particular solution for the entirety of the continent. This is one of the main concerns, I think, for this aff – the fact that it doesn’t do a very specific thing. Instead, the aff just funds and implements what the US Agency for International Development calls Integrated Water Resource Management or IWRM. IWRM is a belief that water solutions will take a while to develop and require a good deal of different solutions for different reasons. The plan commits to funding those things.

Conflict Advantage:Pretty straight forward. Water shortages are causing tensions. We need to clean up the water to decrease the likelihood of conflict. The argument also suggests that because water management requires a framework of multiple parties committed to working things out it. This framework then creates a system for solving other disputes. The impact evidence is pretty good that water conflicts are the most likely in the future and that they will increasingly go nuclear.

Disease Advantage:Dirty water is the leading cause of diseases. The evidence suggests that 1 out of every 2 beds are filled with people because of dirty water at every moment. The aff cleans up water thereby creating a world with less water borne diseases. The aff also claims that clean water not only prevents the spread of water borne diseases it also boosts the immune system to make people more capable of fighting off the symptoms of diseases like HIV/AIDS and other non water-borne viruses and bacterias. The Discovery impact card just suggests that diseases are the most likely cause of mass deaths. Even if you can’t win the extinction/escalation impact to diseases the fact that millions die annually should be a substantial impact.

1


1acCONTENTION ONE - INHERENCY

The Water for the Poor Act was enacted in 2005 – it has since been ignored and plans are to decrease water assistance to Africa south of the Sahara in the status quo

BLUMENAUER 5 – 16 – 07 Representative – House Ways & Means Committee – leading congressional Water Expert[Earl, “Hearing of the Subcommittee on Africa and global health of the house committee on foreign affairs” Federal News Service]

Our legislation was supposed to be the first step to elevate the role of water and sanitation policy in the development of U.S. foreign policy and improve the effectiveness of United States official programs. That's what we voted on, and it passed overwhelmingly with bipartisan support. To date, the Water for the Poor Act that required the creation of a strategy with specific goals, timetables and benchmark to cut in half the percentage of

the people who didn't have safe drinking water and sanitation, there's not been a strategy developed and no high- priority committee -- countries have been designated. In fact, in the seven broad requirements in the act that we passed, only one, an assessment of planned and current activities for the provision of safe drinking water and sanitation, has been even partially met. While our legislation was specifically written in order to improve aid quality at any quantity, there was also a call to increase the level of resources devoted to increasing equitable and sustainable access to safe drinking water and sanitation. Yet, we are abysmally short in reaching that goal. Only by adding in all sorts of things outside the purview of the legislation do we come even close. All told, only $70 million was spent on non-emergency water supply and sanitation, and of this, less than $10 million was spent in sub- Saharan Africa, the area of greatest need. And that's not even the worst news because in fiscal 2008 the State Department's budget proposes further cuts to less than $60 million and proposes ending our water and sanitation assistance programs in a number of key sub-Saharan African countries . I find it shocking. I find it incomprehensible.

AND – the world is at a tipping point – water scarcity is exacerbated by a number of global trends – it makes all problems more likely

C.S.I.S. 05 Center for Strategic Int’l Studies – Sandia National Laboratory[“Global Water Futures: Addressing Our Global Water Future,” 9/30/05, White Paper, http://www.sandia.gov/water/docs/CSIS-SNL_OGWF_9-28-05.PDF]

THEME ONE: Already at crisis proportions, global water problems could be a source of conflict and instability in the future. Finding 1:

Water scarcity caused by mismanagement and a growing imbalance between supply and demand is driving us toward a tipping point in human history. Global trends of increasing population, increasing natural resource consumption, and decreasing natural resource availability—including freshwater—have pushed many human social, economic and political systems to an important tipping point. Poor management of natural resources exacerbates the problem. We face large-scale future dislocations and crises unless significant action is taken now by leaders in both developed and developing countries. Increasing human population and continued economic development leading to increasing consumption and decreasing availability of many natural resources have set the world on a collision course with global physical and ecological constraints. Poor management of resources hastens the potential for this collision. Humans already appropriate over half of all accessible freshwater resources, and future water withdrawals and consumption are expected to continue their steady rise. By 2025, over half the world’s population will live in water stressed or water scarce countries. These issues are driven by trends in population growth, urbanization, industrialization, economic development, and climate change. More people will need to be fed by dwindling sources of arable land. Rising food demand will push the expansion of irrigated agriculture—already one of the most inefficient uses of water. Likewise, economic development requires new power plants that use significant amounts of water in cooling towers. Industrialization will also continue to attract water-intensive industries to water-stressed developing countries—China serving as a case in point. The consequences of over-consumption and mismanagement on human health, economic development and the functioning

of regional and global aquatic ecosystems are already dire and can be expected to worsen. Groundwater levels are dropping and rivers, lakes and wetlands are drying up around the world. Billions of people already lack access to safe drinking water or basic sanitation facilities.

Water pollution further constrains safe water supplies for people, agriculture, industry, and ecosystems. In addition, the reach of these challenges is expanding. They apply not only to arid regions and developing nations but also to developed countries. Almost every region of the world is

already experiencing—or soon will experience—water shortages and/or water quality challenges. Coordinated and consolidated regional and global efforts will be necessary to accelerate progress and to keep step with the array of forces affecting global water supply and demand.

2


1acCONTENTION TWO – HARMS – we’ll isolate two advantagesADVANTAGE ONE – Water Wars

Water Stress is exploding exponentially in Sub-Saharan Africa – current U.S. efforts are abysmal. Additional assistance from the US is vital to prevent conflict escalation and water stress – US presence is key

PETERSON 6 – 21 – 07 Not Jason – the Senior Vice President of CSIS[Erik, “Below the Surface: U.S. international Water Policy,” http://www.csis.org/component/option,com_csis_progj/task,view/id,969/

In the last few weeks, we have seen a torrent of articles and news reports on the subject. US News & World Report, for example, ran a cover story under the title "Why You Should Worry about Water: How this Diminishing Resource Will Determine the Future of Where and How We Live." These and the many other recent writings all serve to emphasize how many of us take for granted a diminishing—and strategic—resource. In the heat of summer, when many Americans spend their days in or around swimming pools sipping various cold drinks, it is easy to ignore that a big chunk of the rest of the world doesn’t have access to clean drinking water. Over a billion people. Beyond that, some 2.6 billion people do not have what we would consider to be adequate sanitation. Think about it this way: Each time you flush a toilet, you are watching a full day’s worth of water per person in the developing world go down the drain. As we scan the more distant time horizons, the dimensions of the water challenge will probably increase significantly. If you superimpose projections for rapid population growth on a map of the world, it will likely occur in those areas of the world that are already the most distressed when it comes to water. What are the two areas of the world forecast to have the highest population growth out to the middle of the century? Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East and North Africa. As monumental as the challenges are in those two regions, they do not stop there. Water looms large as a critical catalyst to—or constraint on—development in countries from China to Chile, India to Indonesia, Russia to Rwanda. By 2025, according to the United Nations, it is possible that more than 2.5 billion people will live in countries experiencing serious water stress. The aggregate numbers could rise even further if the effects of global warming and broader environmental degradation persist, as expected. For all these reasons, one would think that water would be a central component in U.S. foreign policy. Targeting water as an instrument of Washington's engagement with the rest of the world would enable policymakers to assist with humanitarian relief, strengthen human health, support other public health commitments (such as efforts to address HIV/AIDS), promote economic development, advance opportunities for girls and women, and improve the capacity of countries to protect themselves against drought, on the one hand, or floods, on the other. Furthermore, it would imply important commercial opportunities for U.S.-domiciled corporations working in water-related technologies and processes. Targeting water would also yield other geopolitical dividends—including removing what is a serious obstacle to stability and security within states and reducing the possibility for conflict or tension between countries with shared water resources. Finally, water represents an avenue for the United States to demonstrate leadership in the world at a time when its image has eroded so considerably. In short, a water-centered set of policies could represent a remarkable opportunity for the United States to "do good" while "doing well" when it comes to pursuing its own interests in the world. If that’s the theory, then the reality becomes all the more

difficult to comprehend. According to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), U.S. official development assistance commitments for water supply and sanitation in 1999-2000 amounted to less than two percent ($165m) of total national assistance—the lowest (with New Zealand) of any OECD member state. By 2003-2004 the U.S. level had grown to $521m, according to the same OECD statistics, but the lion’s share of the rise was attributable to increased financial assistance directed to Iraq—and even at that level, total assistance was well below the corresponding level for Japan, the OECD leader in water spending. Of the water-related U.S. support not channeled into Iraq, moreover, a disproportionate percentage was allocated to the Middle East and not to regions such as sub-Saharan Africa where the problems are the greatest . In other words, politics are trumping need. Le plus ça change... In a recent report to Congress mandated by the Water for the Poor Act of 2005, the State Department maintained that in FY2006, the U.S. Government obligated $844 million in bilateral and multilateral assistance for "water, sanitation, and related activities around the world." That level probably represents a better-than-best-case scenario because a very wide range of government activities were included. The reality, however, is that U.S. water-related foreign assistance is small in comparison with other OECD donors, concentrated in a relatively small number of countries in which water needs are less pronounced than elsewhere, and dispersed across many diverse parts of government. In the light of humanity’s water predicament—current and future—there is a powerful case to be made that the United States can and should play a far more assertive role. Such a role would improve conditions across the world while promoting broader U.S. interests—an authentic "win-win" proposition. To bring water to the policy surface, however, it implies a crosscutting consensus across economic development and security communities that water is critical to the full spectrum of U.S. interests. It would require a new equilibrium between traditional geopolitical interests and broader humanitarian interests. It means committing more scarce financial resources. It also suggests the critical need for a high-profile office (such as the equivalent of PEPFAR, the U.S. President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief) or the establishment of a special ambassador with sufficient personnel to carry out a broader program. Above all, however, it requires the political will to put a far-sighted strategy into place.

3


1acPlus – tensions are rising in Africa – water scarcity combined with the number of transboundary water sources insures future conflictsIRIN 04 - Integrated Regional Information Networks – Humanitarian News Organization

[“Africa: Diminishing Water Resources Could Fuel Conflict – Experts.” 11-5-04. http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/natres/water/2004/1105diminishing.htm]

Dwindling water resources in Africa could lead to conflicts and food shortages, experts attending an international conference in the Ethiopian

capital, Addis Ababa, said this week. Unsustainable use of water, poor management, pollution, increasing consumption and rapid population growth were fuelling water shortages, according to the experts attending the "Water for Food and Ecosystems" conference. The meeting, which opened on Thursday and was due to end on Saturday, was organised by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the African Union (AU), the Dutch and Ethiopian governments. Delegates warned that much more water would be needed to feed the world’s growing population - projected to rise from about six billion at present to 8.9 billion by 2050. "Demand for water is rapidly increasing," said Rob Vermass, the Dutch ambassador to Ethiopia at the opening of the conference. He stressed that increasing consumption and global population growth is

further straining resources, and that pollution would lead to outbreaks of disease. "These developments are not sustainable and it may increasingly lead to conflicts not only in Africa," added Vermass in a keynote speech. More than two thirds of Africa’s 60 river basins are shared by more than one country, further fuelling potential clashes. Water scarcity posed great health risks, according to Rosebud Kurwijila, the AU's commissioner for rural economy and agriculture. "It threatens to undermine the continent’s potential to achieve food self-sufficiency and food security – a situation which could compromise the very survival of its human population,” said Kurwijila. More than five million people die from waterborne diseases each year, 10 times the number killed in wars around the globe, according to UN figures. In Africa, water scarcity afflicts 300 million people and claims at least 6,000 lives a year. The UN estimates that by 2025, about one in two Africans will be living in countries that are confronted with water stress or water scarcity.

AND - Water scarcity makes conflicts more likely – both regional and global – multiple reasons and the risk is highC.S.I.S. 05 Center for Strategic Int’l Studies – Sandia National Laboratory

[“Global Water Futures: Addressing Our Global Water Future,” 9/30/05, White Paper, http://www.sandia.gov/water/docs/CSIS-SNL_OGWF_9-28-05.PDF]

Water and Geopolitical Stability Taken together, all of these factors—from the rising imbalance of supply and demand to the devastating effects of water on

human prosperity—point toward a world in which growing water challenges could ignite the underlying economic forces that may lead to conflict and war in the future. Such warnings have been voiced by leaders and scholars across the planet—from U.N. Secretary

Generals Kofi Annan and Boutros Boutros Ghali to the U.S. National Intelligence Council. These warnings should certainly be weighed heavily, but the inevitability of conflict solely over water resources remains uncertain. Historical data on international interactions regarding

water show many more cooperative arrangements than conflicts. In fact, the last incident of full-out war over water occurred 4,500 years ago between two Mesopotamian city-states (Postel and Wolf 2001). On the other hand, from 2000-2003, 15 violent conflicts across the world involved water either directly or indirectly. Twelve of these were related to disputes over the development of shared water resources (Gleick 2004a). While history gives cause for comfort, increasing water scarcity and declining water quality across the world

certainly present the threat of increased instability and conflict in the future. Defining the exact nature of that threat is the first step to avoiding

unrest or dangerous disputes. In the future, instability or conflict related to water supplies will likely take two forms: (1) domestic unrest caused by the inability of governments to meet the food, industrial, and municipal needs of its citizens, and (2) hostility between two or more countries—or regions within a country—possibly leading to greater insecurity or conflict, caused by one party disrupting the water supply of

another. Domestic Unrest Numerous instances of domestic unrest have erupted recently related to governments’ management of water resources. In April 2005, thousands of peasant farmers in China’s Zhejiang province violently protested government concessions to a local factory that had been polluting the land and water causing wide spread sickness and poor crop yields. The farmers’ pleas to Beijing and provincial authorities had largely gone unanswered (Cody 2005). In India, riots raged through September and October 2002 over the allocation of the Cauvery River between Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. On the other side of the planet, in Cochabamba, Bolivia, 30,000 protestors managed to reverse the government’s decision to privatize the municipal water utility after several days of violent protest, which left one person dead and more than a hundred injured (Gleick 2004a). In each of these instances, civil unrest was directed toward governments, but private corporations can also fall victim to public discontent. Protests have also been taking place in the state of Kerala over the alleged over-withdrawal of groundwater and pollution by Coca-Cola. The public outcry is partially organized and supported by a one-man nongovernmental organization watchdog in California, demonstrating how increased flows of knowledge and information enable any sized group to exert significant pressure on any issue across long distances. As resource scarcities increase and water quality is threatened throughout the world, many similar types of watchdog organizations could mobilize public discontent or insecurity to act against governments or individual corporations (Stecklow 2005, Basu and Leith 2005). These case studies are just a sampling of the many water-related incidents of unrest arising across the world. They represent the consequences of rising imbalances in water availability and the failures of governments to effectively and transparently mediate the concerns and demands of various users. These dislocations illustrate the direct correlation between governance and disorder—greater stability stems from greater capacities of government institutions to reconcile the demands of urban and rural populations as well as the agriculture, industry, commercial, and domestic sectors; more instances of unrest follow

CONTINUES – NO BREAK IN ARTICLE

4

http://www.sandia.gov/water/docs/CSIS-SNL_OGWF_9-28-05.PDF


CONTINUED – NO BREAK IN ARTICLE

lower levels of government transparency and responsiveness. Unfortunately, government transparency and responsiveness are not widespread in many regions experiencing rising pollution and increasing water scarcity. As a result, problems in governance can be expected to further escalate. These shortcomings may cause domestic disputes and unrest linked to poor water quality and water scarcity.

Food Security Irrigation and food production will significantly impact geopolitical stability and international relations in the coming

decades. As populations grow and become increasingly urbanized, global food production will need to increase to meet demand. Today, 40 percent of food produced in the developing world relies on irrigated agriculture. This level will need to be expanded by 14 percent in order to meet demand. Such an increase becomes less viable with dropping groundwater and surface water levels. According to Sandra Postel and Aaron Wolf (2001), “China, India, Iran, and Pakistan are among the countries where a significant share of the irrigated land is now jeopardized by groundwater depletion, scarce river water, a fertility-sapping buildup of salts in the soil, or some combination of these factors.” The potential for arousing tensions and instigating conflict both within their borders and with their neighbors increases as these countries look for additional sources of water or seek to improve their infrastructures to meet demand. Some countries will have to decide to what degree they should maintain an agricultural sector at all. It takes about 900 liters of water to produce one kilogram of wheat, 1900 liters to produce one kilogram of rice, and 15,000 liters

to produce one kilogram of beef (Clarke and King 2004). Increasing water scarcities raise questions of which crops are necessary and at what level of production to ensure food security. Studies show that when water availability drops below 1500 cubic meters per capita per year, countries begin to import food, and particularly water intense crops (Yang et al. 2003). Twenty-one countries fell below this threshold in 2000 and another 14 will join them by the year 2030 (Yang et al. 2003). Furthermore, when 40 percent of renewable water resources are devoted to irrigation, countries are often forced to decide between allocating water to the agricultural sector or to the urban municipal and industrial sector. By 2030, South Asia will reach that 40 percent level and the Middle East and North Africa region will have hit 58 percent (UNESCO-WWAP 2003). In short, the number of food importers across the world is likely to increase, along with the possibility of domestic unrest related to irrigation shortages. Geopolitical balances will be affected by the alliances between food-importing countries and those countries supplying the food. Cross-border,

International Conflicts Mediating concerns over water uses among the agricultural, industrial, and domestic sectors, the environment, local interests,

national interests, economic development, and the reduction of poverty is sufficiently demanding. However, the challenge is further complicated when geopolitical international pressures are added to the equation. Forty percent of the world’s population lives in more than 260 international river basins of major social and economic importance, 13 of which are shared by five or more countries.

Disputes and conflicts have already erupted and could easily erupt again as increasing water scarcity raises the stakes. As Wolf et al. (2003)

illustrate, the likelihood of a cross-border conflict increases when either the physical or institutional aspect of river basin management is altered and the institutional capacities to cope with these changes are overstretched. Examples of such disruptions include the initiation of a large-scale engineering project, such as a large dam, river diversion, or irrigation scheme, without the consultation of other riparian or downstream users,

or the break up of a single nation into several newly independent states. Without a treaty or other binding agreement to spell out each country’s rights or responsibilities, the situation quickly deteriorates into a “protracted period of regional insecurity and hostility, typically followed by a long and arduous process of dispute resolution (Postel and Wolf 2001).” Using these criteria – rapid change occurring in a hostile and/or institutionless basin – Wolf et al. (2003) identified seventeen river basins at risk of water conflict over the next five to ten years. These basins include the Ganges- Brahmaputra, Han, Incomati, Kunene, Kura-Araks, Lake Chad, La Plata, Lempa, Limpopo, Mekong, Ob (Ertis), Okavango, Orange, Salween, Senegal, Tumen and Zambezi.

Plus – working together to solve water creates participatory frameworks to minimize the risk of conflicts developing over other issues

DABELKO 6 – 29 – 05 Director, Envt’l Change & Security ProgramWoodrow Wilson Int’l Center for Scholars[Geoffrey D., “Congressional Testimony: Water and Sanitation,” www.wilsoncenter.org/news/docs/testimonyHR1973.doc]

Not only can cooperative water management help prevent conflict, but it can help resolve wars caused by other problems. For example, neither the conflict between Israel and Palestine nor the conflict between India and Pakistan was caused by water scarcity. Nevertheless, water resources are key strategic assets that each party must agree how to share before conflict can end. By dedicating working groups to negotiating water issues, the respective peace processes have explicitly recognized the importance of shared water resources. Finally, cooperative water management can help countries recover from war and emerge from post-conflict reconstruction safer,

healthier, and more stable. As Pekka Haavisto, head of UNEP’s Post-Conflict Assessment Unit, writes in State of the World 2005, efforts to

restore the transboundary Mesopotamian marshlands have brought Iraqi and Iranian scientists together for the first time in 29 years. By helping establish water management structures that promote dialogue and cooperation among former combatants, these steps may prevent the reemergence of conflict.

5


1ac

Unfortunately – these water shortages in Africa will spark a global escalation that culminates in nuclear conflict & human extinction – acting now is keyNASCA 06 National Association for Scientific & Cultural Appreciation

[ “Water Shortages – Only A Matter Of Time.” http://www.nasca.org.uk/Strange_relics_/water/water.html)

Water is one of the prime essentials for life as we know it. The plain fact is - no water, no life! This becomes all the more worrying when we realise that the worlds supply of drinkable water will soon diminish quite rapidly. In fact a recent report commissioned by the United Nations has

emphasised that by the year 2025 at least 66% of the worlds population will be without an adequate water supply. As a disaster in the making water shortage ranks in the top category. Without water we are finished, and it is thus imperative that we protect the mechanism through which we derive our supply of this life giving fluid. Unfortunately the exact opposite is the case. We are doing incalculable damage to the planets capacity to generate water and this will have far ranging consequences for the not too distant future. The United Nations has warned that burning of fossil fuels is the prime cause of water shortage. While there may be other reasons such as increased solar activity it is clear that this is a situation over which we can exert a great deal of control. If not then the future will be very bleak indeed! Already the warning signs are there. The last year has seen devastating heatwaves in many parts of the world including the USA where the state of Texas experienced its worst drought on record. Elsewhere in the United States forest fires raged out of control, while other regions of the globe experienced drought conditions that were even more severe. Parts of Iran, Afgahnistan, China and other neighbouring countries experienced their worst droughts on record. These conditions also extended throughout many parts of Africa and it is clear that if circumstances remain unchanged we are facing a disaster of epic proportions. Moreover it will be one for which

there is no easy answer. The spectre of a world water shortage evokes a truly frightening scenario. In fact the United Nations warns that

disputes over water will become the prime source of conflict in the not too distant future. Where these shortages become ever more acute it could forseeably lead to the brink of nuclear conflict. On a lesser scale water, and the price of it, will acquire an importance

somewhat like the current value placed on oil. The difference of course is that while oil is not vital for life, water most certainly is! It seems clear then that in future years countries rich in water will enjoy an importance that perhaps they do not have today. In these circumstances power shifts are inevitable, and this will undoubtedly create its own strife and tension. In the long term the implications do not look

encouraging. It is a two edged sword. First the shortage of water, and then the increased stresses this will impose upon an already stressed world of politics. It means that answers need to be found immediately. Answers that will both ameliorate the damage to the

environment, and also find new sources of water for future consumption. If not, and the problem is left unresolved there will eventually come the day when we shall find ourselves with a nightmare situation for which there will be no obvious answer.

The brink is miniscule – one conflict over water would unleash a global nuclear warWEINER, 1990 Prof at Princeton Department of Molecular Biology

[Johnathan, The Next 100 Years: Shaping the Fate of Our Living Earth, p. 214]

If we do not destroy ourselves with the A-Bomb and the H-Bomb, then we may destroy ourselves with the C-Bomb, the change Bomb. And in a world as interlinked as ours, one explosion may lead to the other. Already in the Middle East, from Northern Africa to the Persian Gulf

and from the Nile to the Euphrates, tensions over dwindling water supplies and rising populations are reaching what many experts describe as a flashpoint. A climate shift in that single battle-scarred nexus might trigger international tensions that will unleash some of the 60,000 nuclear warheads the world has stockpiled since Trinity.

6


1acADVANTAGE TWO – Water Borne Disease

Africa south of the sahara is being devastated by waterborne diseases – it is responsible for 80% of all diseases

LENNTECH 3 – 9 – 07 - Waterweb – online water databaseWaterweb, (http://www.lenntech.com/Waterborne-diseases/waterborne-diseases.htm, P1)

Dimension of the problem In developing countries four-fifths of all the illnesses are caused by water-borne diseases , with diarrhoea being the leading cause of childhood death. The global picture of water and health has a strong local dimension with some 1.1 billion people still lacking access to improved drinking water sources and some 2.4 billion to adequate sanitation. Today we have strong evidence that water-, sanitation and hygiene-related diseases account for some 2,213,000 deaths annually and an annual loss of 82,196,000 Disability Adjusted Life Years (DALYs) (R. Bos, Dec. 2004). WHO estimates indicate that worldwide over 2 billion people are infected with schistosomes and soil transmitted helminthes and 300 million of these suffer serious illness as a result. Malaria kills over a million people every year, and a large percentage of them are under five as well, mainly in Africa South of the Sahara. In 2001 the estimated global burden of malaria amounted to 42.3 million DALYs, constituting 10 % of Africa’s overall disease burden. Malaria causes at least 396.8 million cases of acute illness each year. Pregnant women are the main adult risk group. As one of the major public health problems in tropical countries, it has been claimed that malaria has reduced economic growth in African countries by 1.3 % each year over the past 30 years (*). An estimated 246.7 million people worldwide are infected by schistomiasis, and of these 20 million suffer severe consequences of the infection, while 120 million suffer milder symptoms. An estimated 80% of transmission takes place in Africa south of the Sahara (*).

AND – water borne diseases are the world’s number 1 killer – 4000 kids every day, 3.4 million people a year – no other risk comes close to the magnitude

BERMAN 05 Science and Medicine Correspondent[Jessica, 17 March, WHO: Waterborne Disease is World's Leading Killer, Washington, http://www.voanews.com/english/archive/2005-03/2005-03-17-voa34.cfm?CFID=93767752&CFTOKEN=55192494]

The World Health Organization says that every year more than 3.4 million people die as a result of water related diseases, making it the leading cause of disease and death around the world. Most of the victims are young children, the vast majority of whom die of illnesses caused by organisms that thrive in water sources contaminated by raw sewage. VOA's Jessica Berman has more on the story.

A report published recently in the medical journal The Lancet concluded that poor water sanitation and a lack of safe drinking water take a greater human toll than war, terrorism and weapons of mass destruction combined. According to an assessment

commissioned by the United Nations, 4,000 children die each day as a result of diseases caused by ingestion of filthy water. The report says four out of every 10 people in the world, particularly those in Africa and Asia, do not have clean water to drink. Resources analyst Erik Peterson, of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, describes the water crisis this way: "At any given time, close to half the population of the developing world is suffering from waterborne diseases associated with inadequate provision of water and sanitation services," Mr. Peterson explained. "There are about four billion cases of diarrhea disease per year, resulting in about one or two million deaths, some ninety percent of which, tragically, are in children under the age of five." Cholera, typhoid fever and hepatitis A are caused by bacteria, and are among the most common diarrheal diseases. Other illnesses, such as dysentery, are caused by parasites that live in water contaminated by the feces of sick individuals.

7

http://www.lenntech.com/Waterborne-diseases/waterborne-diseases.htm


1acProviding sanitized water access will eradicate diseases throughout Sub-Saharan Africa – multiple ways

FINDLEY & VOLK 00 PhD Director, Water Initiatives Chemonics International, Inc & CHAIRMAN, ASSOCIATION OF NATIONAL ESTUARY PROGRAMS, MS Environmental Management Texas U.

[Meg & Richard, et al. USAID Water Team, "Towards a Water Secure Future: USAID’s Obligations In Water Resources Management For FY 2000," http://www.usaid.gov/our_work/environment/water/tech_pubs/towards_water_secure.obligations.pdf]

In this chapter, we focus on the health dimension related to water supply and sanitation. While there are various reasons for investments in water, sanitation, and hygiene, protection of public health is certainly one of the most important and widely accepted. Total mortality and morbidity (sickness) can only be estimated, but more than 4 million people die each year of waterborne diseases, including 2 million children from diarrhea alone (Cosgrove and Rijsberman, 2000). It is useful to classify water-related diseases according to transmission mechanism, since such a classification will directly inform decisions on intervention design. Table 2.1 summarizes a commonly used approach. For diseases in each of these categories, Table 2.2 summarizes disease burdens. In terms of mortality, diseases transmitted via the fecal-oral pathway have the greatest impact. These include cholera and other diarrheal diseases, typhoid, hepatitis A and E, and intestinal helminthes. Fecal-oral transmission includes direct waterborne transmission and water-washed transmission, which is principally poor hygiene because of inadequate water quantity. The second category of water-washed diseases imposes a large morbidity burden resulting from poor hygiene due to insufficient quantities of water for bathing, and is responsible for skin infections (scabies, body lice, and tropical ulcers) and eye infections

(trachoma and conjunctivitis). Water-based disease, such as schistosomiasis and guinea-worm (dracunculiasis), involve parasitic vectors that spend part of their lifecycle in an intermediate, aquatic host organism. Other water-related diseases, including malaria, filariasis, yellow fever,

dengue, and river blindness, use insect vectors that require standing water for part of their lifecycles. In terms of disease burden, the most significant of vector-borne diseases is malaria, with the vast majority of the cases occurring in sub-Saharan Africa. Of growing concern is the contamination of drinking water with a variety of human-made and naturally occurring chemicals and heavy metals. One group of chemicals, the organochlorines, has been linked to genetic, reproductive, and behavioral abnormalities in humans and wildlife (World Resources Institute, 1995). These chemicals are now widely found in well water, lakes, and oceans, and in some areas have contaminated both food supplies, through bioaccumulation, and drinking water. Heavy metal contamination is of considerable local concern in various locations. For example, in Bangladesh, India, and Chile, naturally occurring arsenic in groundwater, exacerbated by aquifer drawdown, is responsible for a wide range of serious health effects stemming from chronic overexposure through drinking water. Meanwhile, exposure to mercury and cyanide from mining discharges to water bodies is a serious but often unrecognized health problem to residents downstream of such operations. All of these problems—

insufficient quantity of water, poor water quality, inadequate sanitation, and bad personal hygiene practices—are compounded for the poor who most often are found settled in low-lying, flood-prone, or swampy land with poor drainage and sanitation conditions.

PLUS – Clean water is better than any vaccine

WATKINS 11 – 24 – 06 lead author of the UN Human Development ReportKevin, Africa Focus, Africa: Water, Health, and Development, http://www.africa.upenn.edu/afrfocus/afrfocus112406.html

Women, Water and Development A big part of what we do in the report is sorting out what the problem is. We commissioned a study, which we did with

the World Health Organization, trying to understand the real public health outcomes from the water crisis in Africa. The headline number

that comes out is: globally there are roughly two million child deaths as a result of not having access to clean water. And Africa is hugely over represented in that number. It accounts for something like a third or more, roughly 40% of total child deaths from water-related problems. That is a health outcome. There is a parallel outcome, which is the impact of all of this on economic growth, and how that relates to investment in areas like public health and education. We estimate that the African region loses five per cent of GDP annually as a result of both women having to walk huge distances to collect water - which diverts labor, apart from the huge personal cost that it puts someone in - and the impact of disease on productivity. And five per cent of GDP is a lot of GDP. It is more than Africa gets in aid! There are more people campaigning on aid and debt relief, but this problem dwarfs what goes into Africa through aid and debt relief. The real burden, when you get down to the household level, is uses of women's time. And I think that people do not understand the problem, to be honest. In Kibera, you see these little kids, young girls, carrying 20 liter buckets of water. This is more than half of their body weight. Walking for more than an hour in rural areas is even worse. The minimum amount of water that people need, and what we argue in the

report, is 20 liters daily. We say 20 liters should be a right of citizenship. In rural villages in parts of east Africa, and even in urban areas, and people are using 9 or 10 liters of water a day. Now if you have sick person in the house, and you have nine liters of water a day for cooking, for washing, for drinking, it's impossible to meet basic public health standards, apart from the huge costs in terms of

children who get infected with unclean water. Actually, what we say in the report is that there's a lot of thinking that's going on about immunization - and of course that's critical - but, actually, the most effective vaccine that you can give against child death in Africa is a glass of clean water.

8


1acAnd – clean water solves for infected persons too – means it prevents and improves those lives that are otherwise lost in the current water quagmire

Okong'o 06 - Mshale Senior Correspondent [Edwin, 12/01/2006[, ‘Magic’ in a Packet Brings Safe Drinking Water to Kenyans, http://www.mshale.com/article.cfm?articleID=1328]

Clean drinking water can save lives, and Greg Allgood can testify. Allgood is the director of the Children’s Safe Drinking Water, a Proctor & Gamble program dedicated to providing sanitary water in several developing countries, including Kenya. Perhaps one of the most significant results of the project, Allgood says, is its role in prolonging the lives of people infected with HIV/AIDS.

In the Nyanza Province of Kenya, where Proctor & Gamble first launched the program nearly three years ago, the health of people with AIDS has improved, Allgood says. This result, however, was accidental, for Proctor & Gamble scientists did not know that clean water was important in boosting the immunity of those with AIDS, he adds. “Frankly, despite being very smart scientists, we had really missed out,” says Allgood, who holds a Ph.D. in toxicology. “I had not really thought about the connection between HIV/AIDS and safe drinking water. I hadn’t really thought that it was such an important connection. The more we looked into it with research, the more we treated it as an incredibly important link.” To illustrate how important that link is, Allgood cites the case of Jemima Odo, a woman in Western Kenya, who was bedridden with AIDS and had no access to clean water. After she started drinking purified water, her health improved to an extent where she gained some of the weight she had lost to the disease. “I used to have a lot of diarrhea diseases affecting me and my family. But since I started treating our water , there has been a big change, ” Odo said in a CNN interview. Odo is now on antiretroviral drugs and heads a community group educating people on prevention of HIV/AIDS and how to live healthy with the disease, Allgood says. Allgood says the extent of the shortage of safe water is what prompted Proctor & Gamble to embark on the program.

Epidemics will cause human extinction – they are fast and historically likelyDISCOVER 00

[“Twenty Ways the World Could End” by Corey Powell in Discover Magazine, October 2000, http://discovermagazine.com/2000/oct/featworld]

If Earth doesn't do us in, our fellow organisms might be up to the task. Germs and people have always coexisted, but occasionally the balance gets out of whack. The Black Plague killed one European in four during the 14th century;

influenza took at least 20 million lives between 1918 and 1919; the AIDS epidemic has produced a similar death toll and is still going strong. From 1980 to 1992, reports the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, mortality from infectious disease in the United

States rose 58 percent. Old diseases such as cholera and measles have developed new resistance to antibiotics. Intensive agriculture

and land development is bringing humans closer to animal pathogens. International travel means diseases can spread faster than ever. Michael Osterholm, an infectious disease expert who recently left the Minnesota Department of Health, described the situation as "like trying to swim against the current of a raging river." The grimmest possibility would be the emergence of a strain that spreads so fast we are caught off guard or that resists all chemical means of control, perhaps as a result of our stirring of the ecological pot. About 12,000 years ago, a sudden wave of mammal extinctions swept through the Americas. Ross MacPhee of the American Museum of Natural History argues the culprit was extremely virulent disease, which humans helped transport as they migrated into the New World.

9


1acTHUS THE PLAN – The United States federal government should substantially increase its public health assistance by fully funding and implementing the ‘Water for the Poor Act of 2005’ to Sub-Saharan Africa.

CONTENTION THREE – SOLVENCY

US action is vital – we are the only ones who can lead on the issue of water. The Water for the Poor act was a first step – but funding and implementing are vital to eliminating the water crisi

KEATING 3 – 22 – 06 Research Associate, Global Strategy Institute, Center for Strategic and Int’l Studies[Laura, “Water Makes Sense,” Global Strategy Institute of CSIS, http://www.csis.org/component/option,com_csis_progj/task,view/id,573/]

It is only fitting that on this thirteenth World Water Day and at the close of the fourth World Water Forum, we pause to consider the United States’ track record in addressing global freshwater challenges. U.S. policymakers should assign central priority to meeting demand for water not because of

humanitarian reasons, but because water underscores every strategic policy goal of the United States. Our current levels of commitment do not

adequately reflect this strategic relationship. Ignore for a moment the 1.1 billion people across the planet who today lack access to safe drinking water. Never mind that 50 percent of global population growth will occur in countries already experiencing or expecting to experience water shortages in the coming decades. Do not consider the nearly 5 million people who die each year as a result of waterborne diseases – the vast majority of them children under the age of five. These facts are compelling, but the reasons for U.S.

engagement of water supply and sanitation are much more strategic. Water scarcity, poor water quality, and a lack of access to water supply and sanitation are destabilizing in terms of human health, economic productivity, and security. Internal conflicts over water have already occurred from Venezuela to India to China. A lack of access to drinking water and sanitation perpetuates the cycle of poverty and instability. Women and children are forced to walk long distances to fetch water – in many countries an average three miles each day – or are confined to

their beds with water-related illnesses. An estimated 40 billion working hours are lost in Africa each year to the simple act of fetching drinking water. On a grander scale, countries with inadequate water storage capacities are subject to economic losses linked to natural disasters, such as

droughts and floods. In these ways, global water challenges represent a threat to our foreign policy objectives of maintaining peace and stability and promoting economic development across the world. Interventions to address the many global water challenges can also be viewed as a potential tool for realizing U.S. foreign policy objectives, and often have multiple benefits. For instance,

water is a historically proven unifying force to foster dialogue across otherwise unfriendly transnational borders. At the national and local level, poor governance and gender inequality often are associated with a lack of access to water and sanitation. Water programs are a manifestly beneficial way to promote the basic community decisionmaking structures that could act as the first steps toward democracy. As Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice stated in January, “We seek to use America’s diplomatic power to help foreign citizens to better their own lives, and to build their own nations, and to transform their own future.” Water is unique as a challenge universal to developing countries that offers the U.S. an opportunity to assist in building a better tomorrow by addressing immediate needs. Despite the clear strategic advantages of elevating water as a higher priority, U.S. government policies have remained ambivalent in commitment. This trend is in no way unique among all donor nations; but it is clear that America must lead. In the newly released National Security Strategy, President Bush concludes his introduction by expressing his belief that, “[H]istory has shown that only when we do our part will others do theirs. America must lead.” The Government Accountability Office (GAO) estimated the United States spent $3 billion between 2000 and 2004 on all types of freshwater programs – from water management to water supply and sanitation. This amount is not insignificant, but the funds were concentrated in a very few countries – neglecting many others in dire need. A third of the $3 billion went to Iraq and Afghanistan from 2002-2004 alone. In 2004, the majority of spending by the U.S. Agency for International Development went to just three countries – Egypt, Jordan, and the West Bank/Gaza. Meanwhile, sub-Saharan Africa – the only region not on track to reach the Millennium Development Goals for

water and sanitation – received just 3 percent. In late 2005, Congress highlighted the importance of water and attempted a more definitive

strategy with the Paul Simon Water for the Poor Act, which formally enshrined the provision of water and sanitation for developing countries as a

U.S. foreign policy priority. With historic bi-partisan support and backed by a diverse group of organizations, the act appears to be a step in the right direction. However, without concerted White House support, the act likely will devolve into little more than an unfunded mandate for the State Department and USAID. Devoting more energy and resources to alleviate water supply and sanitation challenges across the world just makes sense. Now, U.S. policies must make sense to reflect the clear links between global water challenges and U.S. foreign policy objectives. Ongoing work at the CSIS Global Strategy Institute (GSI) seeks to inform the U.S. policymaking community on the most effective set of policies to address global water challenges. Over the past year, GSI examined the policy and governance challenges and innovative solutions that could significantly change the global outlook on water. Through a series of workshops held in consultation with Sandia National Laboratories and a host of other partners – including Coca-Cola, ITT Industries, Procter & Gamble, and a host of NGOs – it was confirmed time and again that freshwater is unique among the many global challenges we face. There exists a clear set of solutions that could be applied immediately and on a sweeping scale. The next phase of our work, to be conducted over the next two years, will focus on applying those solutions within the specific contexts of countries and regions of concern. We will seek to concentrate on solutions that rely on the U.S. government to set the tone of leadership, strongly supported by and in close consultation with

the diverse and powerful set of actors who define today’s world. The end result will be a comprehensive analysis of global water challenges and a clear set of policy guidelines.

10


1acFINALLY – a commitment to public health assistance through a water policy to Africa south of the Sahara is vital to ending water scarcity. Only US action can solve for global prioritization, transparency, equity, coordination, capacity building, and sustainability.LOCHERY 5 – 16 – 07 Water Team Director for CARE

[Peter, “Beyond the Status Quo: Bringing Down Barriers to Water and Sanitation Provision in Africa through Implementation of the Senator Paul Simon Water for the Poor Act Testimony before the United States House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health,” http://www.care.org/newsroom/articles/2007/05/lochery_water_testimony.pdf]

Access to safe water and sanitation is as fundamental to life as food or air, yet an alarming number of people in the world’s poorest countries

remain without it. Worldwide, 1.1 billion people lack access to a sufficient amount of clean water and more than double that amount—2.6 billion people—

lack access to adequate sanitation services, forcing them to live in degrading and unhealthy environments. The problem is global in scope, but is

particularly acute in sub-Saharan Africa, where the percentage of people without access to an improved water source is over 50 percent and

almost 70 percent of the population lacks access to improved sanitation1. The absence of these most basic of services has devastating ramifications on all other aspects of life— including basic health, education and livelihoods to name a few—and has undoubtedly proven a barrier to unlocking Africa’s developmental potential. Beyond running through these disturbing statistics, I was asked to present what the situation is on the ground in Africa from the perspective of an operational organization engaged on a daily basis in combating the African water crisis. In their paper, “Getting to boiling point: Turning up the heat on water and sanitation,”2 one of our widelyrespected colleague organizations, WaterAid, surveyed development practitioners in 14 countries in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia regarding challenges to expanding access to water and sanitation3. The survey asked about the “the day-to-day blockages” actually preventing them from being able to deliver these services and found several common themes arose across the countries in question. I would like to echo and expand upon some of these themes. Prioritization—putting water and sanitation at the heart of poverty reduction In needs assessments, when poor people are surveyed, they consistently name lack of water among the main causes of their poverty, and give it first priority in their visions of a better future. Where they have a voice, poor people call on their governments to provide water and try to hold them accountable where possible when services are not forthcoming. However, national governments frequently do not reflect this public priority in their policies, nor do they provide adequate resources to make significant change. In countries where water has been given priority on the national stage and adequate resources are provided to back it, greater improvements in the expansion of service delivery have been seen. Political will and getting priorities straight are key ingredients in progress forward. Transparency—be open about what’s going on It is often difficult to identify the extent to which a government has

prioritized water and sanitation funding and service improvement. This lack of transparency makes it hard to determine how efficiently and effectively funds are being used. In some cases, funds may be used to build and improve water supply, however, if and when documents are made public, they sometimes show that water and sanitation improvements were not concentrated among the areas and populations experiencing the greatest need. Frequently, it is difficult to even track with any precision what the government in question has actually done in the sector. Equity—some for all, not all for some It is necessary to increase the equity of services and target funding and programs where the need is greatest and will have the highest impact. As WaterAid writes, “poor targeting of available resources exacerbates the problem of shortfalls in those resources.”4 An analysis by NGOs, including CARE, for the UN Commission on Sustainable Development in 2004 also found that less than 40% of water resources are directed to the countries where 90% of the people who need them live.5 While additional and more robust funding is desperately needed, access to water and sanitation could be greatly increased by simply redirecting funds that are already available, to areas where each dollar would go further. Coordination—don’t duplicate Similarly, access to water and sanitation could be improved if funds that are currently available were better coordinated. Lack of coordination often results in a variety of duplicative interventions, sometimes resulting in contradictory approaches and messages. Furthermore, lack of coordination prevents the complementarity and synergy that is so desperately needed to leverage the precious resources directed toward water and sanitation initiatives. Capacity—sustainable results depend on it Sometimes recipient governments have difficulty utilizing aid funds for water and sanitation because they simply do not have the right staff to implement the resources that have been provided by donors. In this case, countries providing aid should focus on not only the numbers of wells drilled into the ground, but also on building the capacity of water sectors in developing countries so that they can use aid funds appropriately and develop the institutional know-how that will yield benefits long after donor funds have been utilized. Community Control- partners, not beneficiaries bring sustainability Through our programmatic experience, CARE has found that sustainable water and sanitation programs are those in which communities are involved in the design, implementation, management, maintenance, and monitoring and evaluation of results. This should be no mystery, as no one knows their needs better or has a greater stake in ensuring the sustainability of safe water and sanitation systems than the communities that rely upon them. Our experience has also taught us that to the degree possible, resources should be concentrated at the local level. This not only encourages efficiencies, but often results in positive spill over effects like local level capacity building, the development of improved local governance and the fostering of local civil society, which has potential for a broader impact on governance. Sustainability- the end goal Ultimately, no effort to extend safe water and sanitation services will be effective unless it is sustainable in the long run. This entails making sure that the maintenance,

management, and decision-making around water and sanitation projects can be executed by local actors. Capacity building at both the national and local

levels and community involvement are key components in achieving sustainability. I’d like to provide an example of what this looks like in practice. In 2004 CARE began a project in Mozambique to improve health and reduce poverty amongst 520,000 people in the Cabo Delgado and Nampula provinces by increasing their access to safe water and sanitation. This project was designed not only to respond to the day-to-day needs of poor people but also to address some of the barriers that prevent wider and sustainable access to safe water supply and sanitation. These barriers were identified through a dialogue involving a number a stakeholders including community members, donors, the private sector, and government at different levels. The project engages poor communities in the management of their water resources, including financial management; promotes water use for small scale agriculture as well as domestic use; encourages the development and endorsement of a wider range of technologies so that communities have more choice; and works with government to improve the efficiency of contracting for construction of boreholes. The learning from these various activities is fed back to the stakeholders. The results and impacts of this project are expected to go beyond simple service provision and are designed to have a wider influence on the way the water sector operates in Mozambique. The US Response to the African Water Crisis Tackling the constraints to the expansion of water and sanitation services that I have outlined will require the US government to increase the level of funding devotedtoward these sectors. Funding must be targeted where it will have the greatest impact in dealing with the constraints. Doing

CONTINUES – NO BREAK IN ARTICLE

11


1acCONTINUED – NO BREAK IN ARTICLE

so must include addressing underlying accountability and capacity issues and coordinating with other donor entities. The Water for the Poor Act made the provision of safe water, sanitation, and hygiene an explicit objective of US foreign assistance and called for the State Department to develop a comprehensive strategy outlining how the US would go about expanding equitable access to water and sanitation in countries where the need is greatest. However, implementation of the Act has been limited and has not been backed by the increased appropriations required to realize the goals encompassed in it. The passage of the Water for the Poor Act presents an opportunity around which the US can bring expertise gained through programs in other regions of the world and significantly expanded funding to bear in sub-Saharan Africa. The strategy required by the Act also helps address gaps in responding to the African water crisis. These include: designating high priority recipient countries toward which funding should be targeted; determining which of those countries are truly committed to instituting the necessary reforms and enhancing accountability to their citizens; developing a system of measurable goals, benchmarks

and timetables for monitoring US foreign assistance; and coordinating assistance with other donor countries. The US Government should also focus on complementary activities to strengthen civil societies’, governments’, and the media’s capacity to scrutinize their water and

sanitation sector and demand that money be used appropriately and effectively. This capacity building will benefit not only the country receiving aid by ensuring that water and sanitation services are being delivered as they should be, but also the US as it will encourage the careful use of foreign assistance funds. The US response to the African water crisis to date has been inadequate in relation to the scope of the problem and the impact that expanding access to water and sanitation services would have in addressing many other developmental challenges.

Although the US government took an important step by passing of the visionary Senator Paul Simon Water for the Poor Act of 2005, the current system of policies and institutions in place is not conducive to the US developing and implementing a shared, prominent and responsive agenda adequate to the task of making meaningful change in the water and sanitation sector in Africa. The first State Department Water for the Poor Act Report, which was released in June of 2006, was extremely useful in understanding where and how US resources are being spent in the water and sanitation sector. However, it only met one of the seven broad requirements of the Act and focused on water resources as a whole, rather than exclusively on safe drinking water and sanitation as outlined in the legislation. The Report also provided a summary of current US water programming, rather than laying forth a comprehensive strategy. The information presented in the Report revealed that in FY 2005, a bulk of US funding went to countries and regions of strategic interest (like Afghanistan, Iraq, and the West Bank and Gaza), while only roughly $15 million in sustainable

water supply and sanitation funding went to sub-Saharan Africa, indisputably one of the areas of greatest need. The Report also counted the amount spent in the emergency sector--which, depending on how you count, receives over 50% of total funding--toward what the US is spending on water and sanitation. While funding relief efforts is essential to saving lives, and an activity that the US should continue to invest in, emergency spending will only go so far in addressing the issue of sustainable access to safe water and sanitation, particularly when there are limited

funds for the transition from relief to development. There is no substitute to increasing funding for developmental water and sanitation, which is why the Water for the Poor Act explicitly called for the US to help “expand access to safe water and sanitation in an affordable, equitable, and sustainable manner.” The facts that have come to light with the release of the first State Department Water for the Poor Act Report indicate that US funding must be significantly increased to fill the gaps in addressing the water and sanitation needs of Africa and other under-served areas. Furthermore, they underscore the need to elevate water and sanitation as an explicit priority in order to truly realize the vision incorporated in the legislation. Compounding these funding gaps is the issue of where water assistance lies within US foreign assistance agencies. The water sector continues to be fractured among various US agencies, and even within those agencies themselves. USAID is the lead US

government entity for the provision of assistance for safe water and sanitation globally. The USAID responsibility for water and sanitation is shared

between the Bureaus for Global Health and Economic Growth, Agriculture, & Trade (EGAT), meaning that safe water and sanitation has no dedicated staff (except in OFDA) and must compete with other priorities within those bureaus for funding and attention. While continued engagement on the part of the Department of State in convening an interagency working group on water and sanitation is highly welcome, the designation of a full-time, highlevel staff member—like the Global AIDS Coordinator—would help resolve the issue of water being “lumped in” with other sectoral issues and give the sector the attention that it so desperately needs. The new Foreign Assistance Framework developed over the course of the last year, which is the basis for developing country operational plans, includes water merely as a program level goal under the Investing in People objective. Recognizing that water and sanitation falls under several key objectives like Peace and Security, Economic Development and Improved Governance, but not determining provision of it to be an objective in its own right, contributes to the phenomenon of “water being everywhere and nowhere at the same time.” The low-level priority given to water, as reflected by the fact that it has no “home” within the US policy and administrative hierarchy, is exacerbated by the current funding process, in which there is no accountability mechanism to ensure that the appropriations made for non-line item areas, like water, are spent in accordance with Congressional report language. In order for the vision of the Water for the Poor Act to be realized, we must ensure that additional resources—ones that can be tracked and accounted for—are being provided to fund developmental approaches to expanding access to water and sanitation services. A good start to this would be making sure that water and sanitation are given a specific line

item within the Development Assistance account. An integrated and robust approach to providing access to water and sanitation will enhance the impact of all US foreign assistance to Africa, including programs in education, HIV/AIDS, economic development and livelihood

security. This fact reinforces the need to go beyond simply passing a landmark piece of legislation, like the Water for the Poor Act, to following through with its implementation. The Office of the Director of Foreign Assistance must move forward in fulfilling the Water for the Poor Act requirements of strategically prioritizing water and sanitation in areas of great need, like sub-Saharan Africa, and developing a method for coordinating and integrating assistance for safe water and sanitation with other US foreign assistance efforts. It is equally as important to the implementation of the Water for the Poor Act, that the US government make bolder, additional investments in a sector that has been sidelined for far too long.

12


Topicality – water = public health assistance

Water purification plants are public health assistance – this is in context from a government agencyCDC, 92 (Center for Disease Control, MMWR Weekly, February 14 1992, 41(06);89-91, “Public Health Assessment – Russian Federation, 1992”, http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00016056.htm)

<In the Russian Federation, evolving public health problems are related to three factors: the gradual erosion of hard currency income; the sudden separation of Russia from traditional sources of supplies in the other republics of the former Soviet Union; and inflation associated with the removal of restrictions on retail prices of basic commodities. Vaccine production plants and water-purification systems have not been adequately maintained, and there have been acute shortages of basic hospital supplies (e.g., disposable syringes and needles, intravenous catheters, blood transfusion sets, rubber gloves, glass ampoules, bandages, and suture material) and essential drugs (e.g., cephalosporins, quinolones, insulin, analgesics, anaesthetic agents, disinfectant agents, bronchodilators, and oral contraceptives). Finally, since late 1991, prices have increased threefold for basic foodstuffs (e.g., bread, eggs, meat, and milk). The FHA assessment indicated three priorities for public health assistance to the Russian Federation. First, efforts should focus on the prevention of vaccine-preventable childhood diseases, including measles, pertussis, diphtheria, and poliomyelitis. The assessment indicated that approximately 3 million children aged 1-3 years may be at risk for measles and serious sequelae. In addition to providing measles vaccine, efforts are needed to increase the production of other childhood vaccines. Second, support should be provided to water-purification plants , particularly in regions where organic pollution of public water supplies is severe. Third, medical supplies should include essential and life-saving drugs and other basic supplies.>

Water is a public health issueC.S.I.S. 05 Center for Strategic Int’l Studies – Sandia National Laboratory


Many efforts over the past twenty-five years have focused on alleviating water scarcity and providing clean drinking water and sanitation to effected populations across the planet. These efforts provide valuable lessons and successful models for new strategies and actions for new levels of crisis in the future. From these models, it is clear that institutional capacities in governance systems across the world— varied as they are—must all be strengthened to adequately address the magnitude of future challenges involving water. Improving governance will enable and facilitate the development of strategies and responses engaging the full range of available water-related technologies—from high-tech, high expense to low-tech, low expense. Solutions across that range exist today and must be deployed at new and greater scales in order to reduce the impacts on public health, economic development, environmental degradation, and political stability. Continual effort and investment is needed to develop undiscovered technologies, policy approaches and synergies that could jumpstart new solutions in the decades to come. Policy and technology must evolve together to effectively link innovative strategies with innovative technologies. For these reasons, this White Paper emphasizes the development of strategies to address current and future global water challenges with a specific focus on governance and technology and the critical linkages between the two.

Insuring safe water is a public health issueSIMON 06 Senator & Author of the Water for the Poor Act of 2005

[Paul, “Executive Summary,” http://www.state.gov/g/oes/rls/rpts/67447.htm ]

5.4.4 Protection of public health

While increasing access to improved infrastructure for water supply and sanitation is a critical component of protecting public health, hygiene interventions are important complementary activities to maximize the positive public health impact of improved hardware and to protect public health in case of any hardware shortcomings. A limited number of hygiene activities focused on key, universally-accepted behavioral outcomes and targeted at the household and personal level will be supported. These include ensuring the safety of drinking water at the point-of-use, hand washing, and household sanitation. These activities are appropriate in any country with a high prevalence of diarrheal disease. Possible countries include Afghanistan , Bangladesh , Ethiopia , Haiti , Kenya , India , Indonesia , Madagascar , Malawi , Nepal , Peru , Somalia , Sudan , Uganda , Zambia , and others.

13


Inherency – Africa suffering

Sub Saharan Africa is suffering from a chronic water problemTATLOCK 8 – 7 – 06 Council on Foreign Relations

[Christopher W., “Water Stress in Sub-Saharan Africa,” http://www.cfr.org/publication/11240/#1]

Sub-Saharan Africa suffers from chronically overburdened water systems under increasing stress from fast-growing urban areas. Weak governments, corruption, mismanagement of resources, poor long-term investment, and a lack of environmental research and urban infrastructure only exacerbate the problem. In some cases, the disruption or contamination of water supply in urban infrastructures and rural area has incited domestic and cross-border violence. Experts say incorporating water improvements into economic development is necessary to end the severe problems caused by water stress and to improve public health and advance the economic stability of the region. What is water stress? Water stress refers to economic, social, or environmental problems caused by unmet water needs. Lack of supply is often caused by contamination, drought, or a disruption in distribution. In an extreme example, when Côte D'Ivoire split four years ago between the rebel-led north and government-ruled south, the conflict led to unpaid water bills, which precipitated a dangerous health threat in the region, increasing the risk of water-born diseases such as cholera. Some analysts believe the disruption of distribution was a political ploy to put pressure on the rebel-led north. While water stress occurs throughout the world, no region has been more afflicted than sub-Saharan Africa. The crisis in Darfur stems in part from disputes over water: The conflict that led to the crisis arose from tensions between nomadic farming groups who were competing for water and grazing land—both increasingly scarce due to the expanding Sahara Desert. As Mark Giordano of the International Water Management Institute in Colombo Sri Lanka says, "Most water extracted for development in sub-Saharan Africa—drinking water, livestock watering, irrigation—is at least in some sense 'transboundary'." Because water sources are often cross-border, conflict emerges. While water stress occurs throughout the world, no region has been more afflicted than sub-Saharan Africa. The crisis in Darfur stems in part from disputes over water: The conflict that led to the crisis arose from tensions between nomadic farming groups who were competing for water and grazing land—both increasingly scarce due to the expanding Sahara Desert. As Mark Giordano of the International Water Management Institute in Colombo Sri Lanka says, "Most water extracted for development in sub-Saharan Africa—drinking water, livestock watering, irrigation—is at least in some sense 'transboundary'." Because water sources are often cross-border, conflict emerges. Why is sub-Saharan Africa more vulnerable to water stress than other regions? Insufficient infrastructure is a major reason. In a January 2006 UN research paper that assessed global progress on water quality, P.B. Anand, an environmental economist at Britain's Bradford Centre for International Development, noted a significant regional disparity in sanitation infrastructure between sub-Saharan Africa and other regions (PDF). Another disparity is evident within the sub-continent: Of the 980 large dams in sub-Saharan Africa, around 589 are in South Africa, whereas Tanzania, a country with nearly the same land mass and population, only has two large dams. Jonathan Lautze of Tufts University says, "If you look at all of Africa, disproportionate quantities of storage are destined for a few countries like South Africa and Egypt. Generalized regional or continental figures may fail to fully reflect how dire the situation really is in many countries and how much potential for development there is." The UN Environment Program (UNEP) compares water scarcity and quality today with a projection for the future: Currently, access to safe water in sub-Saharan Africa is worse than any other area on the continent, with only 22 percent to 34 percent of populations in at least eight sub-Saharan countries having access to safe water. The UNEP projects that in the year 2025, as many as twenty-five African nations— roughly half the continent's countries—are expected to suffer from a greater combination of increased water scarcity and water stress. Where are water problems most acute? Southern-Africa and northern sub-Saharan Africa, in particular the strip across the continent along and north of the Sahel region in West Africa, suffer the most, says Mark Giordano. But Nigeria is also having trouble meeting the UN's Millennium Development Goals (ensure environmental sustainability, combat malaria, improve maternal health, reduce child mortality, eradicate extreme poverty and hunger, etc. by the year 2015) because numerous water projects in the country have been abandoned; high levels of pollution are contaminating available surface water that is abundant but undrinkable. And despite substantial revenue from energy reserves, Ethiopia, Angola, and Niger also suffer from water stress.

14


Inherency – current efforts insufficient

U.S. efforts to address water shortages in Sub-Saharan Africa are insufficient – increased U.S. contribution is key to finding solutionsAP, 5-16-07 (“U.N. official tells U.S. Congress about worldwide water defecit.” http://hdr.undp.org/hdr2006/press/coverage/UNtellsCongresswaterdeficit.pdf)

Water and sanitation deficits affect about 50 percent of all people in the developing world and lead to the deaths of 1.8 million children each year, a United Nations water expert said Wednesday. Cecilia Ugaz, a high official of the U.N. Development Program, told a House of Representatives Foreign Affairs subcommittee briefing that there are huge inequalities between rich and poor in terms of access to water. "Water pricing reflects a simple perverse principle: the poorer you are, the more you pay," Ugaz said. She the said water crisis in developing can be solved provided that governments in affected countries and international assistance efforts address the issue more energetically. "Make water a human right and mean it. Every person should have access to at least 20 litters of clean water a day," she said. Rep. Donald Payne, a Democrat and chairman of the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on Africa, said the number of people without access to water has increased by 60 million since 2004, and he warned that water shortages can lead to violence as groups compete for scarce supplies. Payne noted that President George W. Bush's 2008 budget request calls for a cut in water programs in sub-Saharan Africa. "We can't meet U.N. development goals at the rate we are going," he said. Rep. Earl Blumenauer, also a Democrat, said the administration has declined to implement seriously 2005 legislation to enhance U.S. water availability worldwide, of which he was the main proponent. Last year, he said, only $70 million (€51.5 million) was budgeted for non-emergency water and sanitation in developing countries, Of this, he said, only $10 million (€7.37 million) was earmarked for sub-Saharan Africa, the region most in need. "I find it shocking, I find it incomprehensible," Blumenauer said, accusing the State Department of ignoring the spirit of the legislation. Claudia McMurray, a top State Department official who is responsible for water issues, testified that the United States cannot be expected to solve global water problems all by itself. "Local and national governments have to take primary responsibility," she said, adding that the United States can contribute the most toward solving the issue by developing capacity.

The Water for the Poor Act received only one-time fundingKafanov 5-14-07. Lucy, Environment and Energy Daily reporter. "WATER: Panel weighs U.S. role in African water crisis" SECTION: IN THE HOUSE Vol. 10 No. 9. accessed through LexisNexis Academic

The stark reality of a water crisis in Africa has prompted one House panel to take notice. The facts are hard to fathom: Water-related diseases kill 2 million people each year; the same problem kills nearly 4,000 children every day; more than 1.1 billion people have no access to clean water; twice that number have no basic sanitation. These statistics have prompted the Africa panel of the House Foreign Affairs Committee to hold a hearing on what the United States can do to address the water crisis. Much of the focus is likely to be on Rep. Earl Blumenauer's (D-Ore.) "Paul Simon Water for the Poor Act," a bill passed by Congress and signed into law by President Bush in 2005. That legislation directs the federal government to more aggressively tackle water issues as part of its foreign aid work. But to date, not a single dollar has been appropriated to carry out programs authorized by the law. The State Department released a report in June 2006 clarifying current spending and programs related to water, but some groups have accused the federal government of not doing enough to carry out the requirements of the legislation. CARE, an international humanitarian organization, released comments last month that urged the federal government to fulfill the promise it makes in Blumenauer's law. The group criticized a State Department report on the crisis and for implementing only one of several broad requirements for the U.S. water and sanitation strategy. "The report did not include a true strategy, but rather a summary of current activities and spending," CARE said.

15


Water War Risk is high

Recent population trends increase the risk of resource wars Morrissette and Borer, 04 (Jason J. Morrissette , doctoral candidate and instructor of record in the School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Georgia. Douglas A. Borer (Ph.D., Boston University, 1993), Associate Professor in the Department of Defense Analysis at the Naval Postgraduate School. “Where Oil and Water Do Mix: Environmental Scarcity and Future Conflict in the Middle East and North Africa.” Winter 04-05. http://www.carlisle.army.mil/ usawc/Parameters/04winter/borer.htm)

In the eyes of a future observer, what will characterize the political landscape of the Middle East and North Africa? Will the future mirror the past or, as suggested by the quote above, are significant changes on the horizon? In the past, struggles over territory, ideology, colonialism, nationalism, religion, and oil have defined the region. While it is clear that many of those sources of conflict remain salient today, future war in the Middle East and North Africa also will be increasingly influenced by economic and demographic trends that do not bode well for the region. By 2025, world population is projected to reach eight billion. As a global figure, this number is troubling enough; however, over 90 percent of the projected growth will take place in developing countries in which the vast majority of the population is dependent on local renewable resources. For instance, World Bank estimates place the present annual growth rate in the Middle East and North Africa at 1.9 percent versus a worldwide average of 1.4 percent. In most of these countries, these precious renewable resources are controlled by small segments of the domestic political elite, leaving less and less to the majority of the population. As a result, if present population and economic trends continue, we project that many future conflicts throughout the region will be directly linked to what academic researchers term “environmental scarcity”— the scarcity of renewable resources such as arable land, forests, and fresh water.

Water wars are coming – globalization Morrissette and Borer, 04 (Jason J. Morrissette , doctoral candidate and instructor of record in the School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Georgia. Douglas A. Borer (Ph.D., Boston University, 1993), Associate Professor in the Department of Defense Analysis at the Naval Postgraduate School. “Where Oil and Water Do Mix: Environmental Scarcity and Future Conflict in the Middle East and North Africa.” Winter 04-05. http://www.carlisle.army.mil/ usawc/Parameters/04winter/borer.htm)

In future research, basic intelligence is needed on two fronts. First, we must obtain a clearer understanding of the capacity of global commodity markets to meet future virtual water needs in the form of food. Second, we must identify which Middle East and North Africa governments will most likely have the economic capacity to meet their virtual water needs though food purchases—or, perhaps more important, which ones will not. In short, is there food available in the global market, and can countries afford to buy it? Countries that cannot afford virtual water may choose instead to pursue war as a means of achieving their national interest goals. Clearly the strongest countries, or those least susceptible to intrastate or interstate conflict arising from environmental scarcity, are those that have significant water resources or the economic capacity to purchase virtual water. However, it is also clear that the relative condition of peace that has existed in the Middle East and North Africa has been maintained historically through deeply buried linkages. Having moved away from the conventional understanding of water strictly as a zero-sum environmental resource by reconceptualizing it in more fungible economic terms, we nevertheless believe two incompatible social trends will collide to make war in the Middle East and North Africa virtually inevitable in the future. The first trend is economic globalization. As capitalism becomes ever more embraced as the global economic philosophy, and the world increasingly embraces free-trade economics, economic growth is both required and is inevitable. The WTO will facilitate this aggregate global growth, which, on the plus side, will undoubtedly increase the basic standard of living for the average world citizen. However, the global economy will be required to meet the needs of an estimated eight billion citizens in the year 2025. Achieving growth will demand an ever-greater share of the world’s existing natural resources, including water. Thus, if present regional economic and demographic trends continue, resource shortfalls will occur, with water being the most highly stressed resource in the Middle East and North Africa.

16


African Water Tensions ↑ now

Tensions are growing along the Nile river – immediate action to relieve water stress is necessaryNzwili, 07 (Fredwick Nzwili, correspondent for Ecumenical News International in Kenya. “Water Conflicts Increasing, Uganda Conference Warns.” 6-5-07. http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/natres/water/2007/0605wwc.htm#author)

Having witnessed the impacts of small conflicts, church leaders and related organizations are worried about Africa's large fresh water masses. It is feared that the Nile waters, for example, could spark off a regional conflict, as countries attempt to pipe the water or generate development projects around it. "The waters of the Nile are extremely sensitive," says Mr Dawit Kebede, an engineer with NCA. Kebede explains that while ten countries in Africa share the water of Nile, Egypt appears to enjoy exclusive rights to this immense resource. "Any time a country plans to use the water, tensions rise," he says, explaining that a 1929 agreement between the British and Egypt required that any country seeking to use the water must first seek consent from Egypt. Another agreement was signed in 1959 between Sudan and Egypt, where they agreed to share the water. Despite the mounting tensions around water resources, conference participan ts emphasized that non-violent solutions to present and future conflicts over water are feasible. Such tensions can also be seen as opportunities for peaceful co-operation and joint problem-solving. Church leaders are convinced that even the Nile waters can be a unifying element for the countries through which the river passes. "We must not forget that water has always connected people and brought them together," said Danuta Sacher, head of the policy and campaigns department at Bread for the World (Germany). In a final statement, the conference participants affirmed that to settle conflicts, solutions need to be sought together with affected populations, and be based on mutual respect for the right to water of all people involved. They warned that much will depend on the willingness of governments to deal openly and fairly with water issues, prioritizing the rights of the poorest and most vulnerable people, and exploring ways for peaceful collaboration and sharing among and within states.

Water wars coming in the Okavango basin, Ethiopia, and EgyptReid, 06 (John Reid, reporter, The Independent. British news organization. “Water Wars: Climate Change May Spark Conflict.” 2-28-06. http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/natres/water/2006/0228list.htm)

Five per cent of the world's population survives on 1 per cent of its water in the Middle East and this contributed to the 1967 Arab -Israeli war. It could fuel further military crises as global warming continues. Israel, the Palestinian Territories and Jordan rely on the River Jordan but Israel controls it and has cut supplies during times of scarcity. Palestinian consumption is severely restricted by Israel. Turkish plans to build dams on the Euphrates River brought the country to the brink of war with Syria in 1998. Damascus accused Ankara of deliberately meddling with their water supply as the country lies downstream of Turkey, who accused Syria of sheltering key Kurdish separatist leaders. Water shortages driven by global warming will pile on the pressure in this volatile region. The Brahmaputra River has caused tension between India and China and could be a flashpoint for two of the world's biggest armies. In 2000, India accused China of not sharing information of the river's status in the run up to landslides in Tibet which caused floods in northeastern India and Bangladesh. Chinese proposals to divert the river have concerned Delhi. Angola and Namibia: Tensions have flared between Botswana, Namibia and Angola around the vast Okavango basin. And droughts have seen Namibia revive plans for a 250-mile water pipeline to supply the capital. Draining the delta would be lethal for locals and tourism. Without the annual flood from the north, the swamps will shrink and water will bleed way into the Kalahari Desert. Ethiopia and Egypt: Population growth in Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia is threatening conflict along the world's longest river, The Nile. Ethiopia is pressing for a greater share of the Blue Nile's water but that would leave downstream Egypt as a loser. Egypt is worried the White Nile running through Uganda and Sudan, could be depleted as well before it reaches the parched Sinai desert.

17


Water conflicts escalate

Water wars along the Nile and in the Okavango River will cause World War 3Howard 03 Managing Editor – E – the Environmental Magazine

(Brian, “The world’s water crisis,” The Environmental Magazine, http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1594/is_5_14/ai_108149594/pg_1)

In fact, although many people might agree philosophically with Mikhail Gorbachev when he said, "Clean water is a universal human right," the world is sharply divided in terms of access to safe hydration. Those who can afford it are guzzling ever-increasing numbers of designer water bottles, while half the world's population lacks basic sanitation facilities, according to the United Nations (UN). Diseases caused by unsanitary water kill five to 12 million people a year, most of them women and children. A child dies every eight seconds from a preventable water-borne disease. Only one-hundredth of one percent of the blue planet's water is readily accessible for human use. The World Resources Institute (WRI) estimates that 2.3 billion people currently live in "water-stressed areas." Hydrologists cite much of Africa, northern China, pockets of India, Mexico, the Middle East and parts of western North America as regions facing severe water shortages. Some of the world's largest cities, including Mexico City, Bangkok and Jakarta, have severely over-pumped their groundwater aquifers. As world population continues to increase, water scarcity will affect two out of every three people by 2025, according to UN estimates. In the 20th century, demand for fresh water grew twice as fast as population. This imbalance is largely due to industrial agriculture, but is also a product of unequal development in standards of living versus sound water management. Additionally, scientists at Harvard University point out that global warming could significantly harm water availability. A warmer atmosphere could lead to higher rates of evaporation, causing droughts and more severe weather. Faster runoff rates and slower infiltration of groundwater could follow. Warmer water may also promote detrimental algal and microbial blooms, which may lead to more water-borne illnesses. And ironically, as the climate heats up, people will want to use more water for drinking, bathing and watering plants. "The next world war will be over water," says Vice President Ismail Serageldin of the World Bank. Even now, some competition is beginning to build between (and within) nations over finite water resources. Egypt has watched warily as Ethiopia has built hundreds of dams on the Nile. Syria and Iraq have squabbled over water projects with Turkey, and some of Israel's many conflicts with Jordan and the Palestinians have been over water issues. Botswana raised

Competition over water causes political instability that spills over and destabilizes entire regionsWolf et al, 05 (Aaron T. Wolf, associate professor of geography at Oregon State University. Annika Kramer, research fellow at Adelphi Research in Berlin. Alexander Carius, director of Adelphi Reasearch in Berlin. Geoffery D. Dabelko, director of the Environmental Change and Security Project at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington D.C. “Managing Water Conflict and Cooperation.” Avail. In “The Struggle for Water: Increasing Demands on a Vital Resource” by Aaron Fishbone p.163-4)

<As water quality degrades or quantity diminishes, it can affect people's health and destroy livelihoods that depend on water. Agriculture uses two thirds of the world's water and is the greatest source of livelihoods, especially in developing countries, where a large portion of the population depends on subsistence. Sandra Postel's list of countries that rely heavily on declining water supplies for irrigation includes eight that currently concern the security community: Bangladesh, China, Egypt, India, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, and Uzbekistan. When access to irrigation water is cut off, groups of unemployed, disgruntled men may be forced out of the countryside and into the city-an established contributor to political instability. Migration can cause tensions between communities, especially when it increases pressure on already scarce resources, and cross-boundary migration can contribute to interstate tensions." Thus, water problems can contribute to local instability, which in tum can destabilize a nation or an entire region. In this indirect way, water contributes to international and national disputes, even though the parties are not fighting explicitly about water. During the 30 years that Israel occupied the Gaza Strip, for example, water quality deteriorated stead ily, saltwater intruded into local wells, and water-related diseases took a toll on the residents. In 1987, the second intifada began in the Gaza Strip, and the uprising quickly spread through out the West Bank. While it would be simplistic to claim that deteriorating water quality caused the violence, it undoubtedly exacerbated an already tenuous situation by damaging health and livelihoods." An examination of relations between India and Bangladesh demonstrates that local instabilities can spring from international water disputes and exacerbate international tensions. In the 1960s, India built a dam at Farakka, diverting a portion of the Ganges from Bangladesh to flush silt from Calcutta's seaport, some 100 miles to the south. In Bangladesh, the reduced flow depleted surface water and groundwater, impeded navigation, increased salinity, degraded fisheries, and endangered water supplies and public health, leading some Bangladeshis to migrate-many, ironically, to India." So, while no "water wars" have occurred, the lack of clean fresh water or the competition over access to water resources has occasionally led to intense political instability that resulted in acute violence, albeit on a small scale. Insufficient access to water is a major cause of lost livelihoods and thus fuels livelihood-related conflicts. Environmental protection, peace, and stability are unlikely to be realized in a world in which so many suffer from poverty.">

18


H20 Scarcity global wars Water makes global wars likely – 2 ways – and its historically proven & perception basedC.S.I.S. 05 Center for Strategic Int’l Studies – Sandia National Laboratory


Finding 3: Water problems are geopolitically destabilizing. Water scarcity and poor water quality have the potential to destabilize isolated regions within countries, whole countries, or entire regions sharing limited sources of water. There is an increasing likelihood of social strife and even armed conflict resulting from the pressures of water scarcity and mismanagement . Water scarcity and poor water quality could lead to increased potential for domestic instability and heightened transnational tensions. History shows that in many regions around the world, water has been a source of considerable cooperation between nations sharing water resources. However, increasing populations and water scarcities may bring about a different future. In the years ahead, instability or conflict related to water supplies will likely take two forms: (1) domestic unrest caused by the inability of governments to meet the food, industrial, and municipal needs of its citizens, and (2) hostility between two or more countries—or regions within a country—possibly leading to greater insecurity or conflict, caused by one party disrupting the water supply of another. Over the past five years, several domestic upheavals involving water have erupted across the world. These violent episodes have occurred in countries with varying degrees of economic development and in both rural and urban settings. However, they were all largely the results of the perception or reality of rising imbalances in water availability and the failures of governments to effectively and transparently mediate the concerns and demands of various users. Growing water imbalances will also alter international relationships. Changing patterns of food trade caused by water scarcity will influence international alliances. Cross-border relations between riparian countries in water stressed regions will undoubtedly be shaped by water sharing agreements or the lack thereof. Conflicts related to water scarcity will continue to strike hardest in regions already facing geopolitical stress and conflict and will exert enormous pressure on existing transboundary and domestic instabilities.

Water wars are coming – political instability will cause conflicts to escalate and become international warsPostel and Wolf, 01 (Sanda L. Post, director of the Global Water Project and senior fellow with Worldwatch Institute. Aaron T. Wolf, associate professor of geography at Oregon State University and director of the Transboundry Freshwater Project. “Dehydrating Conflict.,” foreign policy magazine, 9-18-01. http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/natres/water/2001/1001fpol.htm)

<Remember the last time two nations went to war over water? Probably not, since it was 4,500 years ago. But today, as demands for water hit the limits of a finite supply, conflicts are spreading within nations. And more than 50 countries on five continents might soon be spiraling toward water disputes unless they move quickly to strike agreements on how to share the rivers that flow across international boundaries. Talk of

water wars reverberates around the globe these days. United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan said last March that "fierce competition for fresh water may well become a source of conflict and wars in the future," and a recent report of the U.S. National Intelligence Council concludes that the likelihood of interstate conflict will increase during the next 15 years "as countries press against the limits of available water." Some dismiss these warnings as alarmist, and history seems to be on their side. The only recorded incident of an outright war over water was 4,500 years ago between two Mesopotamian city-states, Lagash and Umma, in the region we now call southern Iraq. Conversely, between the years 805 and 1984, countries signed more than 3,600 water-related treaties, many showing great creativity in dealing with this critical resource. An analysis of 1,831 international water-related events over the last 50 years reveals that two thirds of these encounters were of a cooperative nature. Nations agreed, for example, to implement joint scientific or technological work and signed 157 water treaties. Others argue, however, that when it comes to water the past will not be a reliable guide to the future. A renewable but not infinite resource, fresh water is becoming increasingly scarce: The amount available to the world today is almost the same as it was when the Mesopotamians traded blows, even as global demand has steadily increased. Just since 1950, the renewable supply per person has fallen 58 percent as world population has swelled from 2.5 billion to 6 billion. Moreover, unlike oil and most other strategic resources, fresh water has no substitute in most of its uses. It is essential for growing food, manufacturing goods, and safeguarding human health. And while history suggests that cooperation over water has been the norm, it has not been the rule. One fourth of water-related interactions during the last half century were hostile. Although the vast majority of these hostilities involved no more than verbal antagonism, rival countries went beyond name-calling on 37 recorded occasions and fired shots, blew up a dam, or undertook some other form of military action. Lost amidst this perennial debate over whether there will be water wars has been a serious effort to understand precisely how and why tensions develop, beyond the simplistic cause-and-effect equation that water shortages lead to wars. First, whether or not water scarcity causes outright warfare between nations in the years ahead, it already causes enough violence and conflict within nations to threaten social and political stability. And as recent events in the Balkans and sub-Saharan Africa demonstrated, today's civil conflicts have a nasty habit of spilling over borders and becoming tomorrow's international wars. Second, water disputes between countries, though typically not leading to war directly, have fueled decades of regional tensions, thwarted economic development, and risked provoking larger conflicts before eventually giving way to cooperation. The obsession with water wars begs more important questions: What are the early signs and likely locations of water-related disputes, and what can governments and international agents do to prevent the eruption of violence and political instability?>

19


Water solutions peace over other issues

Water efforts spillover to solve conflicts caused by other means C.S.I.S. 05 Center for Strategic Int’l Studies – Sandia National Laboratory


Cooperative efforts organized around sustainable water management can also fortify or improve cross-border relationships. Transboundary stakeholder dialogues on water management can build trust and serve as an avenue for dialogue along official or unofficial (Track II) lines. This foundation can then grow into cooperation in other areas that may be more inflammatory between the parties or between states with little experience of cooperation (Carius, Dabelko, and Wolf 2004). Examples of such peacemaking or peacekeeping water initiatives include the “Picnic Table Talks” between Jordan and Israel, Mekong Committee, Indus River Commission, cooperation in the Caucasus over the Kura-Araks basin, and the just-started expertto- expert collaboration along the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. In short, IWRM strategies require a certain level of institutional development and stability. In the absence of this base, smaller scale projects aimed at institutional capacity-building, incorporating IWRM principles, and conducted at all levels from the central government down to the community level, will ultimately result in the development of open, participatory frameworks not only for water management, but for other areas of governance as well.

20


A2 – won’t happen – history / food / interdependenceYour history arguments are irrelevant– food imports have historically reduced water stress and prevented war. However, as food prices rise, this model will collapse, causing widespread conflictMorrissette and Borer, 04 (Jason J. Morrissette , doctoral candidate and instructor of record in the School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Georgia. Douglas A. Borer (Ph.D., Boston University, 1993), Associate Professor in the Department of Defense Analysis at the Naval Postgraduate School. “Where Oil and Water Do Mix: Environmental Scarcity and Future Conflict in the Middle East and North Africa.” Winter 04-05. http://www.carlisle.army.mil/ usawc/Parameters/04winter/borer.htm)

Simply put, many countries of the region cannot presently meet the irrigation requirements needed to feed their own growing populations. Furthermore, for those countries that have sufficient resources to meet this need in aggregate (such as Syria), resource capture and structural distribution problems keep water out of the hands of many citizens. If this situation has been deteriorating for nearly three decades, the question remains: Why has there been no war over water? The answer, according to Tony Allen, lies in an extremely important hidden source of water, which he describes as

“virtual water.” Virtual water is the water contained in the food that the region imports—from the United States, Australia, Argentina, New

Zealand, the countries of the European Union, and other major food-exporting countries. If each person of the world consumes food that requires 1,000 cubic meters of water to grow, plus 100 additional cubic meters for drinking, hygiene, and industrial production, it is still possible that any country that cannot supply the water to produce food may have sufficient water to meet its needs—if it has the economic capacity to buy, or the political capacity to beg, the remaining virtual water in the form of imported food. According to Allen, more water flows into the countries of the Middle East and North Africa as virtual water each year than flows down the Nile for Egypt’s agriculture. Virtual water obtained in the food available on the global market has enabled the governments of the region’s countries to augment their inadequate and declining water resources. For instance, despite its meager freshwater resources of 180 cubic meters per capita, Israel—otherwise self-sufficient in terms of food production—manages its problems of water scarcity in part by importing large supplies of grain each year. As noted in Figure 1, this pattern is replicated by eight other countries in the region that have less than 1,100 cubic meters of water per person. Thus, the global cereal grain commodity markets have proven to be a very accessible and effective system for importing virtual water needs. In the Middle East and North Africa, politicians and resource managers have thus far found this option a better choice than resorting to war over water with their neighbors. As a result, the strategic imperative for maintaining peace has been met through access to virtual water in the form of food imports from the global market. The global trade in food commodities has been increasingly accessible, even to poor economies, for the past 50 years. During the Cold War, food that could not be purchased was often provided in the form of grants by either the United States or the Soviet Union, and in times of famine, international relief efforts in various parts of the globe have fed the starving. Over time, competition by the generators of the global grain surplus—the United States, Australia, Argentina, and the European Community—brought down the global price of grain. As a result, the past quarter-century, the period during which water conflicts in the Middle East and North Africa have been most insistently predicted, was also a period of global commodity markets awash with surplus grain. This situation allowed the region’s states to replace domestic water supply shortages with subsidized virtual water in the form of purchases from the global commodities market. For example, during the 1980s, grain was being traded at about $100 (US) a ton, despite costing about $200 a ton to produce.27 Thus, US and European taxpayers were largely responsible for funding the cost of virtual water (in the form of significant agricultural subsidies they paid their own farmers) which significantly benefited the countries of the Middle East and North Africa. For the most part we concur with Allen’s evaluation that countries have not gone to war primarily over water, and that they have not done so because they have been able to purchase virtual water on the international market. However, the key question for the future is, Will this situation continue? If the answer is yes, and grain will remain affordable to the countries of the region, then it is relatively safe to conclude that conflict derived from environmental scarcity (in the form of water deficits) will not be

a significant problem in the foreseeable future. However, if the answer is no, and grain will not be as affordable as it has been in the past, then future conflict scenarios based on environmental scarcity must be seriously considered. Regrettably, a trend toward the answer “no” appears to be gaining some momentum due to ongoing structural changes in the global economy. The year 1995 witnessed a dramatic change in the world grain market, when wheat prices rose rapidly, eventually reaching $250 a ton by the spring of 1996. With the laws of supply and demand kicking in, this increased price resulted in greater production; by 1998, world wheat prices had fallen back to $140 a ton, but had risen again to over $270 by June 2001. These rapid wheat price fluctuations reemphasize the strategic importance and volatility of virtual water. If the global price of food staples remains affordable, many countries in the Middle East and North Africa may struggle to meet the demand-induced scarcity resulting from their growing populations, but they most likely will succeed. However, if basic food staple prices rise significantly in the coming decades and the existing economic growth patterns that have characterized the region’s economies over the past 30 years remain constant, an outbreak of war is more likely. It is clear that recent structural changes in the world economy do not favor the continuation of affordable food prices for the region’s countries in the future. As noted above, wheat that costs $200 a ton to produce has often been sold for $100 a ton on world markets. This situation is possible only when the supplier is compensated for the lost $100 per ton in the form of a subsidy. Historically, these subsidies have been paid by the governments of major cereal grain-producing countries, primarily the United States and members of the European Union. Indeed, for the last 100 years, farm subsidies have been a bedrock

public policy throughout the food-exporting countries of the first world. However, with the steady embrace of global free-trade economics and the establishment of the World Trade Organization (WTO), agricultural subsidies have come under pressure in most major grain-producing countries. According to a recent US Department of Agriculture (USDA) study, “The elimination of agriculture trade and domestic policy distortions could raise world agriculture prices about 12 percent.” Thus, as the WTO gains systematic credibility over the coming decades, its free-trade policies will further erode the practice of farm price supports, and it is highly unlikely that the aggregate farm subsidies of the past will continue at historic levels in the future. Under the new WTO regime, global food production will be increasingly based on the real cost of production plus whatever profit is required to keep farmers in business. Therefore, as global food prices rise in the future, and American and European governments are restricted by the new global trading regime from subsidizing their farmers, the price of virtual water in the Middle East and North Africa and throughout the food-importing world will also rise.

21


Water Diseases –in SSA

Lack of clean water access in sub-Saharan Africa constrains development and spreads diseaseLochery, 5-16-07 (Peter Lochery, Water Team Director, CARE. Testimony before the House of Reps. Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health. "Beyond the Status Quo:

Bringing Down Barriers to Water and Sanitation Provision in Africa through Implementation of the Senator Paul Simon Water for the Poor Act." http://www.care.org/newsroom/articles/2007/05/lochery_water_testimony.pdf)

Access to safe water and sanitation is as fundamental to life as food or air, yet an alarming number of people in the world’s poorest countries remain without it. Worldwide, 1.1 billion people lack access to a sufficient amount of clean water and more than double that amount—2.6 billion people—lack access to adequate sanitation services, forcing them to live in degrading and unhealthy environments. The problem is global in scope, but is particularly acute in sub-Saharan Africa, where the percentage of people without access to an improved water source is over 50 percent and almost 70 percent of the population lacks access to improved sanitation1. The absence of these most basic of services has devastating ramifications on all other aspects of life— including basic health, education and livelihoods to name a few—and has undoubtedly proven a barrier to unlocking Africa’s developmental potential.

22


Water Diseases - #1 killer

Millions of children die annually as a result of PREVENTABLE waterborne diseasesGorbachev - President, Green Cross International, Geneva, Switzerland- 02[Mikhail, HYDROPOLITICS IN THE DEVELOPING WORLD:A SOUTHERN AFRICAN PERSPECTIVE, edi.Anthony Turton & Roland Henwood,pg7-8]

Water can also be regarded as a source of universal shame, because three million children will die and millions more will become blind this year alone as a result of preventable water-borne diseases ; over one billion people do not have access to safe drinking water; almost three billion do not have the means for adequate sanitation; while people thoughtlessly continue to pollute and exploit natural sources of freshwater throughout the world. For those responsible for international, national and local policies that have failed to rectify, and have exacerbated this situation in many cases, these appalling figures are an indisputable call to reassess current paradigms for water management and to implement the necessary changes as a top priority . For the people whose lives are reflected in these statistics, it is crucial to seek – and that they are assisted achieving – empowerment through co-operation, access to information and active participation in community water management and decision-making.

Water diseases will kill 50 million in 15 yearsC.S.I.S. 05 Center for Strategic Int’l Studies – Sandia National Laboratory


Consequences for Individuals The consequences of inadequate water supply and sanitation are most severe for individuals. To begin with, the human health costs are dramatic. Five million people die every year as a result of waterborne diseases or water-related illnesses. Intestinal parasites infect about 10 percent of people in developing nations; 6 million people are blind from trachoma; 200 million are infected with schistosomiasis and 20 million suffer severe consequences from the disease. All these problems and many more are related to poor water quality and lack of sanitation (WHO and UNICEF 2000). Gleick (2004a) estimates that current trends will result in the deaths of between 30 and 50 million people from water-related diseases by the year 2020.

23


Water Diseases – threaten humanity

Waterborne diseases are a threat to humans world wide The Environmental Literacy Council 2007 (July 17, 2007, http://www.enviroliteracy.org/article.php/707.html

<Waterborne Diseases. Waterborne diseases remain one of the most significant threats to human health worldwide . According to the United Nations World Health Organization's (WHO) 2002 report, an estimated 1.7 million deaths a year can be attributed to unsafe water supplies. Most of these deaths are from diarrheal diseases; ninety percent of those who die from diarrheal diseases are children in developing countries. According to WHO statistics, there are approximately 4 billion cases of diarrhea each year, caused by a number of different pathogens, including Shigella, Campylobacter jejuni, Escherichia coli, Salmonella, and cholera, so these pathogens would have to be considered the most dangerous.>

Water isn’t a threat just in Africa but a world wide threatUNESCO Courier 95(January, Water Diseases, http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1310/is_1985_Jan/ai_3581844)

Waterborne Diseases <THE World Health Organization has estimated that 80 per cent of all sickness and disease in the world is attributable to inadequate water or sanitation. This includes the effects of drinking contaminated water, water acting as a breeding ground for carriers of disease, and caused by lack of washing. Five types of disease are related to water and sanitation: Waterborne diseases spread by drinking (or washing food, utensils, hands or face in) contaminated water. They include typhoid, cholera, dysentery, gastro-enteritis (diarrhoea) and, where pollution is exceptionally severe, infective hepatitis. Water-washed infections of the skin and eyes spread by inadequate water for personal washing. They include trachoma, scabies, yaws, leprosy, conjunctivities, skin sepsis and ulcers. Water-based diseases, so called because the vector (carrier) is an invertebrate aquatic organism. The most important are schistosomiasis and the guinea worm.Diseases with water-related insect vectors. Mosquitoes (carriers of malaria, filariasis, yellow fever) and blackfiles (carriers of river blindness) need water for breeding. Certain tse-tse fly vectors of sleeping sickness usually bite near water. Infections primarily caused because of defective sanitation, such as hookworm. DIARRHOEA directly kills 6 million children in developing countries each year, and contributes to the death of up to 18 million people. Victims often die of dehydration. Survivors are weakened and easy prey to other diseases. In unsanitary conditions the disease easily passes from child to child. The cure is rehydration, the replacement of lost fluid and salts by weak sugar and salt solution taken either orally or by intravenous drip. TRACHOMA is a virus infection of the outer parts of the eye, eventually causing build-up of scar tissue over the eye and blindness if untreated. Spread by flies and touch. 500 million people infected world-wide. SCHISTOSOMIASIS (bilharzia, or snail fever) is caused by a parasite spread by freshwater snails (see article). It is today a cause of misery and debility for 200 million people in Africa, the Middle East, parts of Latin America and southeast Asia. Infectious schistosome larvae penetrate the skin when a person swims or wades in water. The larvae migrate to the blood stream where they become adult worms. Eggs leave the body via faeces or urine. Symptoms include fever, painful liver, blisters on skin and blood in faeces and urine. Ironically schistosomiasis has spread dramatically because of the spread of irrigation canals and dams which provide a suitable habitat for the snails and their parasite. RIVER BLINDNESS (onchocerciasis) is caused by minute worms carried from person to person when bitten by small black files that breed in fast flowing water. Worms spread inside body often to eyes where damage and scarring eventually cause blindness. An estimated 30 million people are affected. MALARIA, common in many of the hot, tropical parts of the world, is carried from person to person by carrier mosquitoes. Almost any amount of water is sufficient for the mosquitoes to lay their eggs. Each year it is estimated that 800 million people suffer from the fevers of malaria.>

24

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1310


Clean H20 ↓ diseases Cleaning water is vital to preventing massive infectious disease spread and to sustaining an steady economy Berman - Science and Medicine Correspondent-05

[Jessica, 17 March, WHO: Waterborne Disease is World's Leading Killer, Washington, http://www.voanews.com/english/archive/2005-03/2005-03-17-voa34.cfm?CFID=93767752&CFTOKEN=55192494]

Lakes and streams which people use for drinking water, bathing and defecating are sources of disease, as is water left by natural disasters. Last year's tsunami left victims in ankle-deep water, amid destroyed sewage pipes. People can also contract a diarrheal disease by eating food that's prepared by sick individuals who have not washed their hands, or touching something handled by an infected person and then putting their own hands into their mouths. Marla Smith-Nelson helped form Water Partners International, after becoming alarmed by the health impact of unclean water in some of the world's poorest countries. "In Ethiopia, I believe one in five children are dying before they reach the age of five. So, we are working in countries that have significant water issues," she said. "But there are so many countries that have severe water issues, I don't want to paint a picture that we are working in the absolute worst places. I think it's probably a tie among a lot of different countries where there are issues." Experts say there are both short term and long term measures that can be taken to prevent the spread of waterborne illnesses. In the short term, they say people should wash their hands as much as possible, use a latrine, even if it's a hole in the ground, and boil water and store it. For the long term, communities must have sources of clean drinking water. Ms. Smith-Nelson says up to 50 percent of places with unsafe drinking water once had systems that functioned, but they fell apart due to lack of maintenance. Her group helps rebuild water systems and shows local people how to set up local governing bodies to run them. The organization has worked in communities in nations as diverse as Bangladesh and Honduras. "One of the biggest systems that we funded involved 50 miles of pipeline trench that was dug entirely by hand by the community itself," she explained, " which I think was a great example to me, and I think a great example to anybody who works with us, on the significance of these water systems, of how badly they're wanted by the community, the fact that local people would put in two years of hard labor to dig a trench to get water to their community." Analysts say eliminating disease and death due to unclean water and poor sanitation would reap billions of dollars in health and productivity gains. They estimate that for every dollar spent, there would be an economic return of between $3 and $34, depending upon the country. The United Nations has set a goal of cutting in half by the year 2015 the number of people without access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation. Independent experts say that a concerted effort on the part of wealthier nations is necessary if that goal is to be reached.

Water access is key to economic development and the prevention of diseasesC.S.I.S. 05 Center for Strategic Int’l Studies – Sandia National Laboratory


Finding 2: Water is a foundation for human prosperity. Adequate, highquality water supplies provide a basis for the growth and development of human social, economic, cultural and political systems. Conversely, economic stagnation and political instability will persist or worsen in those regions where the quality and reliability of water supplies remain uncertain. Adequate supplies of freshwater are a cornerstone for human activities at all scales, from daily subsistence needs to higher levels of economic production. Lack of access to safe, clean water for drinking, sanitation, agriculture, or industry is perpetuating cycles of poverty and limiting viable development options in regions around the world. Without access to a reliable and convenient source of water, family members, most often women and girls, can spend hours each day collecting water. In addition, the water supply is typically unsafe or is stored and transported in ways that ultimately contaminate it. Either situation can result in contraction of life-threatening waterrelated diseases. Water-related diseases and the requirements of water collection keep children from attending school and keep adults from engaging in productive economic activities. The costs of lost productivity and foregone economic opportunity can be measured in the hundreds of millions of dollars, even in areas of the world where wages may be only a few dollars a day. These concerns are equally relevant for both urban slums and remote rural areas, but the solutions for addressing these challenges differ with each situation.

25


Sanitation ↓ diseases

Increased sanitation and water will eliminate diseasesClasen and Cairncross 2004 London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (Thomas and Sandy, Household water management: refining the dominant Paradigm Tropical Medicine and International Health, volume 9 no 2, pp 187–191, February)

[The second body of evidence stems from a relatively new approach to enhancing water quality as part of a public health initiative: improved household water management. While the extent to which even safe water becomes faecally contaminated during collection, transport, storage and drawing in the home is well known (Wright et al. 2003), only recently have low-cost health interventions been promoted to improve and preserve water quality at the household level (Mintz et al. 2001). Based on a comprehensive review of these interventions, the WHO concluded that there was now 'conclusive evidence that simple, acceptable, low-cost interventions at the household and community level are capable of dramatically improving the microbial quality of household stored water and reducing the attendant risks of diarrhoeal disease and death' (Sobsey 2002). This has lead to the formation of the WHO-sponsored International Network for the Promotion of Safe Household Water Treatment and Storage, a global collaboration of UN and bilateral agencies, NGO's, research institutions and the private sector committed to improved household water management as a component in water, sanitation and hygiene programmes.]

26


US action is good

The United States is vital to find a global solution to water shortages – a commitment would help to coordinate key agencies that take advantage of unique U.S. knowledge – and any other actor won’t be able to coordinate other governments, US agencies, and NGO’s to piggy-back off of each other and insure sustainable success.C.S.I.S. 05 Center for Strategic Int’l Studies – Sandia National Laboratory


As the United States faces its own domestic water scarcity and management issues, it will develop new technologies, new capacities, new understandings, and new practices that could be easily exported to help other countries solve similar problems. There is a great wealth of knowledge in the United States

and in the federal agencies that could significantly improve global efforts to improve water availability and management across. For instance, much of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation’s (USBOR) expertise goes underutilized. The USBOR was formed under the

Department of the Interior in 1902 and originally tasked with infrastructure development to bring water for irrigation to the many family farms of the west—which the Bureau’s work soon made some of the most agriculturally productive in the world. Currently, it is conducting work on energy and cost efficient desalinization through the Water Treatment and Engineering Research (WaTER)

project. In addition to the Water 2025 project and Water Conservation Field Services Program, USBOR has created valuable tools and information that can support future U.S. foreign policy objectives in water and sanitation, and may be especially useful in reducing the potential for future conflict. However, this body of expertise, like many others at USBOR, has been mobilized only ad hoc to meet strategic foreign policy objectives in the area of global water issues. There is no permanent structure linking USAID and USBOR, despite the clear expertise of USBR in areas of importance to USAID policies. It may be a simple solution to suggest that a cure for the coordination difficulties between agency redundancies on an important issue would simply be that the United States needs a Department of Water to address mounting domestic and international water issues. In reality, the formation of such a department is unlikely and undesirable. The Department of Energy (DOE) was formed in 1977 in response to the massive energy crisis of the time. Likewise, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was formed in 2002, largely in response to the 9/11 attacks. The formations of DOE and DHS have demonstrated that reshuffling agencies is a painful process. Moreover, water is important to the work of almost every

US government agency and is integrated into other components that fall squarely under existing core competencies. Therefore, the proper approach to elevate the strategic and operational importance of water in US policy is to invigorate and integrate coordination between agencies. Many studies have suggested approaches that involve the establishment of national councils or other mechanisms to promote inter-agency focus and coordination (Reilly & Babbit 2005, National Council for Science and Environment, 2004). Even a central clearing house that would provide nongovernmental organizations or corporations information on government programs or potential partnership opportunities would be a step in the right direction. A recent CSIS report on restructuring the Department of Defense noted, “Interagency operations are no longer rare. Yet crises are still managed largely on a case by case basis, with interagency coordination mechanisms reinvented each time. While such ad hoc processes are agile, they are neither coherent nor durable. Since there is no reason to believe that today’s crisis will be the last, it makes sense to plan for the next one (CSIS 2005).” The post-conflict involvements on water management in Afghanistan and Iraq make excellent examples of familiar, ongoing crises that have been undertaken more or less as ad hoc interventions in terms of water policy and planning. Almost every government agency has become involved in these issues—but not in any centrally coordinated manner. Policy planning among agencies has improved in each

theater with time, but the extent to which cross-agency involvements have been institutionalized is not clear. Relationships are constantly made, broken, and re-established. From Iraq and Afghanistan to smaller interventions in sub-Saharan Africa, the United States has boldly stood up to massive challenges related to water access and quality in recent years. But the responses have failed to turn successes into practice, and the money that continues to trickle into recipient countries may arrive disaggregated from overarching foreign and country policies. Whether during humanitarian relief missions,

or in the course of government business, all too often approaches to country and regional development are taken on spontaneously and without careful consultation with other agencies. The number of agencies—and departments and bureaus within agencies—involved in international activity has increased tremendously in the post-cold war era. Globalization, not surprisingly, has impacted and enticed the U.S. government and its constituent parts. The lingering challenge is for agencies to properly carry out underlying US government policies, and to maximize scales of economy among efforts. Amidst this new proliferation of US government activity abroad and the importance of water, both the “Medicine, Health, and Safe Water: A Currency for Peace Act of 2005” and the “Water for the

Poor Act of 2005” introduced to Congress have recognized the need for better central planning and a high-level mandate for addressing water-related activities. The former act calls on the Secretary of State and the Administrator of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) to formulate—in consultation with foreign and domestic actors in and out of government—a US strategy to meet the foreign policy objective of expanding global access to safe water and sanitation, while encouraging sound water management. The latter bill charges solely the Administrator of USAID with a similar task. But, as described previously, neither bill looks likely to pass Congress, or to receive funding. The language and approach of these bills, however, is appropriate. There is hope that leadership will take these strong beginnings toward sustainable design, appropriate funding and structural reform. It is not unrealistic to claim that the truly outstanding, cost-effective, forwardlooking strategies from the U.S. government are based on multi-agency approaches. An integrated, national strategy for global water issues continues to be an anomaly for one core reason—the absence of a clearly defined mandate from above. A clash of cultures between government agencies, turf wars, unclear or limiting regulations, and a lack of resources inhibit the dispersed units from coordinated planning and implementation. Nearly every federal agency or research institution has conducted an international water project, but each applies this expertise on a limited, ad-hoc basis. Developing an integrated and cohesive international policy on water will be a major step forward for coordinating efforts, fully utilizing the institutional knowledge of the U.S. government, and achieving many U.S. and foreign policy goals.

Until such time as Congress or the President sees fit to engage the issue of water, progress on the issue will continue to be hard-won.

Agencies, bureaus and individuals within them will continue to do good work, engaging this important issue abroad as they have for the past

hundred years—and especially the past two decades. NGOs and international organizations will sustain their efforts on water-related issues and will seek to elevate the commitment of recipient governments and communities. But without more concerted US engagement with the issue, from the top levels down, engagement will be costlier, less effective, and less connected to other standing US objectives, including considerations of national security. From upholding important commitments to improving health, education and economic development around the globe and promoting the stability of allies, water plays a critical role in meeting America’s objectives to maintain peace and prosperity at home and abroad.

27


Plan = Coordination & expertise

US coordinates efforts to insure success – and normal means is to work along with other donors – only US action insures coordination, expertise, and the involvement of other important actorsSIMON 06 Senator & Author of the Water for the Poor Act of 2005

[Paul, “Executive Summary,” http://www.state.gov/g/oes/rls/rpts/67447.htm ]

4.4 Coordination with donors, developing countries, and other players

The U.S. participates in a number of formal and informal processes to coordinate the development of both policies and programs related to international water issues. The U.S. often works with both developed and developing country governments to build support for and advance policies and approaches the U.S. wants to promote on international water and sanitation issues. For example, U.S. efforts with G8 countries led to the inclusion of innovative financing mechanisms and point of use technologies for household water disinfection in the G8 Water Action Plan in Evian. U.S. work with a number of other governments led to reforms in the structure of a number of international events (i.e., the UN Commission on Sustainable Development, the World Water Forum, and Stockholm Water week) to better support the exchange of best practices and advance partnerships and programs. In some cases, where there is a strategic advantage, the U.S. will work closely with a few key donors on a specific issue. For example, the highly effective partnership with the Japanese government on innovative financing has yielded significant results, including progress on leveraged financing in the Philippines , Indonesia , and Jamaica . In the Middle East in particular, USAID often works with other donors, each financing a part of major water infrastructure or providing the grant-based technical assistance required by other donor water infrastructure projects. The U.S. also works to coordinate specific projects and programs at both the global and local level. The U.S. regularly participates in a number of events to coordinate donor efforts in key areas at the macro level. Examples include the Informal Donors Consultation on Transboundary Water – to coordinate diplomatic and development efforts on transboundary water (see Box 4.2); the Integrated Water Resources Info Group – hosted by UNDP to coordinate efforts on national level Integrated Water Resources Management planning; and the Donors Consultation on Water and Sanitation (hosted by the World Bank). Most coordination on specific projects and programs occurs at the country and regional level, in the context of actual programs and activities on the ground. USAID participates actively in donor coordination bodies at the national level for water resources management or water supply and sanitation delivery in countries where the Agency has programs in the sector. In many cases, the practical outcome of this coordination is better information sharing about what each donor is supporting, where they are working, and who they are partnering with, to facilitate identification of possible areas of coordination and synergy. Because of different planning and budgeting cycles for each donor, it is more challenging to collaborate in joint design and development of activities in advance. However, USAID always develops its programs and activities with a full consideration of what other actors are doing in the sector, to avoid duplication, enhance synergy, and display the Agency's comparative advantage. The newly-established Office of the Director of Foreign Assistance will provide a leadership structure for rationalizing and coordinating all foreign assistance planning, policy, and oversight. 4.5 Leveraging U.S. contributions: Working through partnerships A joining of forces between the USG and its traditional as well as non-traditional development partners is the most effective approach to addressing water resources problems around the world. Several USG agencies already leverage considerable resources from non-USG sources, promote environments where private sector investment becomes attractive, and strengthen the climate for international trade with U.S. environmental technology firms. Federal agencies have also developed a significant range of partnerships with private sector companies, non-governmental and private voluntary organizations, academic and research institutions, faith-based organizations, host country governments, and international donor partners in strong, mutually supportive relationships that support U.S. water sector interventions as well as the interests of the partnering organizations. USAID's development experience and long-term presence in each country are attractive to the private sector and other non-traditional actors for the relationships with foreign governments and contextual perspective they provide, as well as the expertise and experience they have in implementing effective water resources management and water supply and sanitation service delivery programs. Other partners bring their own particular strengths to the table, including access to private markets and capital, connections with different constituencies and client bases, additional resources for development interventions, and an opportunity to positively influence the behavior of industries and businesses that are large consumers of water. The development of such partnerships are a core element of USAID's approach, promoted through the Global Development Alliance (GDA) Secretariat. This new business model for development looks to leverage the expertise, resources, and relationships of those who may not have been involved in development activities in the past.

28


Plan solves conflicts

Lack of clean water is killing millions in Africa and exacerbating conflicts – US action is keyDABELKO 6 – 29 – 05 Director, Envt’l Change & Security ProgramWoodrow Wilson Int’l Center for Scholars

[Geoffrey D., “Congressional Testimony: Water and Sanitation,” www.wilsoncenter.org/news/docs/testimonyHR1973.doc]

We are all aware of the devastation wrought by HIV/AIDS on sub-Saharan Africa. However, developing countries in Africa and elsewhere face another severe crisis that demands our help. Three to four million people—using half of the hospital beds in the world—die each year from another silent killer: unsafe water. The vast majority of these victims are children, struck down by waterborne typhoid, cholera, diarrhea, and dysentery, and virtually all live in developing countries. Lack of water also impedes the social and economic development of those who survive: women and girls in many parts of sub-Saharan Africa must walk an average of six kilometers to fetch water—each way—preventing them from going to school or working outside the home. And millions more are too sick from chronic waterborne illness to attend school at all. The victims of dirty water need our help. The United States government has an active program, but we can do more, and we can do it better. The “Water for the Poor Act 2005” goes a long way towards this goal. I would like to focus on three key points related to the legislation before the Committee: 1. The United States can enhance its national security by increasing water and sanitation foreign assistance to developing countries. Furthermore, water management offers unique opportunities to build peace between parties in conflict. 2.

Integrating water and sanitation programs into other sectors will make water and sanitation programs more effective—and improve the results of programs in other sectors, such as health, agriculture, education, economic development, and conflict prevention. 3. Improving donor coordination and increasing multilateral efforts would make water and sanitation foreign assistance more effective. 1. The United States can enhance its national security by increasing water and sanitation foreign assistance to developing countries. Furthermore, water management offers unique opportunities to build peace between parties in conflict. Why should the United States increase its foreign assistance to help developing countries improve their access to safe water and sanitation? Simply put, safe water will make us all safer. Without it, neighboring users sometimes come to blows. For example, increasing water scarcity in Kenya pits herder against farmer, and urban dweller against rural peasant. Communities in China are standing up to industries that pollute water supplies, sometimes leading to violent confrontations between the protesters and local officials. Civil protests, in part sparked by dramatic hikes in water prices, have contributed to the paralysis of successive Bolivian governments. The connections are clear. Improved water and sanitation are the bedrock of development. A healthy, productive labor force requires safe drinking water, for example, and women’s education and empowerment require adequate water sanitation. Development is key to building democracy and ensuring state stability. But while developing countries face this new global crisis that threatens their stability, the donor community is not responding with the aid necessary to avert these threats. Most of United States’ water development aid is given to a handful of countries (Afghanistan, Egypt, Indonesia, Iraq, Jordan, Pakistan, and West Bank/Gaza). Geopolitical interests certainly shape any foreign policy, and no one is naïve enough to suggest ignoring these interests. However, our aid in the water and sanitation sector is nearsighted. Africa’s share of USAID water and sanitation assistance, excluding integrated health programs and disaster relief, is only 7 percent. In 2000-2001, only 12 percent of total OECD water sector aid was delivered to countries where less than 60 percent of the population has access to an improved water source. While these statistics predate the $970-million “Water for the Poor 2003-2005” initiative announced by the administration at the World Summit on Sustainable Development, donors are still doing too little to address the water crisis.

29


Solving Scarcity solves conflicts

Ensuring strong institutional capacity and equal water distribution will prevent conflictWolf et al, 05 (Aaron T. Wolf, associate professor of geography at Oregon State University. Annika Kramer, research fellow at Adelphi Research in Berlin. Alexander Carius, director of Adelphi Reasearch in Berlin. Geoffery D. Dabelko, director of the Environmental Change and Security Project at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington D.C. “Managing Water Conflict and Cooperation.” Avail. In “The Struggle for Water: Increasing Demands on a Vital Resource” by Aaron Fishbone p.164-5)

<Many analysts who write about water politics, especially those who explicitly address the issue of Welter conflicts, assume that scarcity of such a critical resource drives people to conflict, It seems intuitive: the less water there is, the more dearly it is held and the more likely it is that people will fight over it. Recent research on indicators for transboundary water conflict, however, did not find any statistically significant physical parameters-arid climates were no more conflict-prone than humid ones, and international cooperation actually increased during droughts. In fact, no single variable proved causal: democracies were as susceptible to conflict as autocracies, rich countries as poor ones, densely populated countries as sparsely populated ones, and large countries as small ones. When Oregon State University researchers looked closely at water management practices in arid countries, they found institutional capacity was the key to success. Naturally arid countries cooperate on water: to live in a water-scarce environment, people develop institutional strategies-formal treaties, informal working groups, or generally warm relations-for adaptmg to it. The researchers also found that the likelihood of conflict increases significantly if two factors come into play. First, conflicr is more likely if the basin's physical or political setting undergoes a large or rapid change, such as the construction of a dam, an irrigation scheme, or territorial realignment. Second, cnoflict is more likely if existing institutions are unable to absorb and effectively manage that change. Water resource management institutions have to be strong to balance competing interests and to manage water scarcity (which is often the result of previous mismanagement), and they can even become a matter of dispute themselves, In international river basins, water management institutions typically fail to manage conflicts when there is no treaty spelling out each nation's rights and responsibilities nor any implicit agreements or cooperative arrangements." Similarly, at the national and local level it is not the lack of water that leads to cont1ict but the way it is governed and managed. Many countries need stronger policies to regulate water use and enable equitable and sustainable management. Especially in developing countries, water management institutions often lack the human, technical, and financial resources to develop comprehensive management plans and ensure their implementation. Moreover, in many countries decisionrnaking authority is spread among different institutions responsible for agriculture, fisheries, water supply, regional development, tourism, transport, or conservation and environment, so that different management approaches serve contradictory objectives. Formal and customary management practices can also be contradictory, as demonstrated in Cochabarnba, where formal provisions of the 1999 Bolivian Water Services Law conflicted with customary groundwater use by farmers' associations." In countries without a formal system of water use permits or adequate enforcement and monitoring, more powerful water users can override the customary rights of local communities. If institutions allocate water inequitably between social groups, the risk of public protest and conflict increases, In South Africa, the apartheid regime allocated water to favor the white minority, This "ecological marginalization" heightened the black population's grievances and contributed to social instability, which ultimately led to the end of the regime." Institutions can also distribute costs and benefits unequally: revenues from major water infrastructure projects, such as large dams or irrigation schemes, usually benefit only a small elite, leaving local communities to cope with the resulting environmental and social impacts, often with little compensation. The various parties to water conflicts often have differing perceptions of legal rights, the technical nature of the problem, the cost of solving it, and the allocation of costs among stakeholders,>

30


Local participation solves

Expanding local participation is key to solving C.S.I.S. 05 Center for Strategic Int’l Studies – Sandia National Laboratory


Increasing local participation in the planning, implementation, and maintenance of water projects would improve sustainability by shoring up regulatory oversight, incorporating local knowledge, better addressing local needs, and creating community buy-in. However, low levels of education, sharp societal divides, bureaucratic impediments, and possible corruption at all levels of governance act as obstacles for civil society to take on the roles that would make decentralized approaches effective. Capacity building across the board in technical, financial, managerial, and social intermediation is necessary. An absence of incentives and poor governance can also lead to severe gaps in available capital for expanding, maintaining, and improving water infrastructure. Current estimates suggest annual investment in water infrastructure will need to double over the next two decades. Sources of capital for infrastructure development in developing countries have traditionally come from predominantly domestic sources rather than foreign assistance. If official development assistance and private sector spending on infrastructure continues to decline in the future, governments will have to expand their share of infrastructure investment. Poor governance will continue to create obstacles for raising the necessary financing.i

Lack of focus on local concerns undermines solvency and encourages poor governanceLochery, 5-16-07 (Peter Lochery, Water Team Director, CARE. Testimony before the House of Reps. Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health. "Beyond the Status Quo:

Bringing Down Barriers to Water and Sanitation Provision in Africa through Implementation of the Senator Paul Simon Water for the Poor Act." http://www.care.org/newsroom/articles/2007/05/lochery_water_testimony.pdf)

Through our programmatic experience, CARE has found that sustainable water and sanitation programs are those in which communities are involved in the design, implementation, management, maintenance, and monitoring and evaluation of results. This should be no mystery, as no one knows their needs better or has a greater stake in ensuring the sustainability of safe water and sanitation systems than the communities that rely upon them. Our experience has also taught us that to the degree possible, resources should be concentrated at the local level. This not only encourages efficiencies, but often results in positive spill over effects like local level capacity building, the development of improved local governance and the fostering of local civil society, which has potential for a broader impact on governance.

31


A2 – not enough water exists

Water scarcity is solvable – it isn’t just a lack of waterUSAID 07 Report on the Global Water Crisis

http://www.usaid.gov/our_work/environment/water/water_crisis.html

The water crisis is not one of absolute scarcity as much as poor management and inequitable distribution. Regardless of the cause, some regions require particularly urgent action. Of the 48 countries experiencing chronic water shortages (by 2025), 40 are either in the Middle East and North Africa or in sub-Saharan Africa. The 20 countries of the Middle East and North Africa face the worst prospects. Worldwide demand for water tripled during the past century, and is presently doubling every 21 years. Clearly, such demand is unsustainable in the long term and will require dramatic new approaches to water resources management to avoid the worst of the looming crisis. Some would ask how a planet that has 70 percent of its surface covered with water could face a water crisis. More than 97 percent of that water is ocean water. Of the remaining three percent, about three-quarters is locked away in ice caps or glaciers, and is thus unavailable. In truth, slightly less than one one-hundredth of one percent of the world’s total supply of water is easily accessible as lakes, rivers, and shallow groundwater sources that are renewed by snow and rainfall. Water scarcity is further compounded by the disparity between where human populations are located and when and where rainfall and runoff occurs. Viewed in this manner, 81 percent of total global runoff is within geographic reach for human use, but three-quarters of that comes as floodwater and therefore is not accessible on demand.

32


A2 – water is depleting

Management solves water depletionUSAID Water Team, “Towards a Water Secure Future: USAID’s Obligations In Water Resources management For FY 2000 In Parts I and II” 2000 http://www.usaid.gov/our_work/environment/water/tech_pubs/towards_water_secure.obligations.pdf

While the problems and causes of aquifer depletion and contamination are clear, immediate solutions are not. Water professionals agree, however, that active aquifer management must be undertaken in the wider context of watershed management. Most solutions involve some combination of increased recharge rate, reduced consumption rate, overall efficiency gains, and reduced or eliminated contaminant sources (Shah et al., 2000). For example, reducing the velocity of runoff and providing time for recharge could enhance groundwater supplies significantly and at the same time reduce land-based sources of pollution to receiving waters. Reducing pumpage rates, on the other hand, may involve a close look at linkages with the energy sector and other root causes of overpumping (see Box 5.2). Sustainable groundwater management will also require looking at larger management questions, including the development of alternative surface water supplies, reallocation among economic uses of water, and regulatory limits on abstraction. As with other water resources management issues, all elements of active aquifer management must be undertaken through stakeholder participation and whole basin analysis based on projected demand (see Chapter 4).

33

http://www.usaid.gov/our_work/environment/water/tech_pubs/towards_water_secure.obligations.pdf

Documents

Water Affirmative