As populations have grown, human needs have increased and expectations have changed, the natural environment that supports growth has deteriorated, and the challenges faced by governments and societies have become more complex. In a race to promote the economic growth that can sustain human development, inexplicably, people themselves, who should be the beneficiaries of that development, have been pushed from the centre of development debates and dialogues to the periphery.
Water is indispensable to human development as it relates to every other sector. The World Economic Forum recognized its importance this year by placing water crises as the top risk faced in terms of potential spread and magnitude. Growing attention to ‘nexus’ interrelationships between water and other sectors, notably energy and food, also recognizes the centrality of water in other security realms.
By Cecilia Tortajada, 2015. Article published in Water International, Volume 40, Issue 4, pages 556-558. DOI: 10.1080/02508060.2015.1084076