World Water Day

 Africa’s freshwater resources are estimated to be nearly 9% of the world’s total. However, these water resources are unevenly distributed, with the six most water-rich countries in Central and Western Africa holding 54% of the continent’s total water resources and the 27 most water-poor countries holding only 7%. About 73% of the total population of Sub-Saharan Africa did not use safely managed drinking water services in 2017. An estimated 14% of Africa’s population (about 160 million people) currently live under conditions of water scarcity, due in part to the uneven distribution of water resources as well as inequalities in the access to clean and portable water services .

  The development of overarching frameworks such as the 2000 European Union Water Framework Directive  demonstrates the increasing significance that is being placed on valuing water . Nonetheless, efforts to value water , especially in a transboundary context, remain limited in scope and often use different approaches. The discernible approaches to valuing water quantitatively in the transboundary context are more targeted on specific aspects of managing transboundary water resources , such as flood management , disaster risk reduction (DRR) , early-warning systems (EWS) and ecosystem services . Investment in data collection systems is recognized as being of vital importance and while it comes at an additional cost, that cost can be compensated by the benefits of effective cooperation. The 2017 joint Adelphi and Regional Environmental Centre for Central Asia study noted that “it is important not to neglect the indirect costs of suboptimal water management because they demo...

  Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) possess an average water endowment per inhabitant  of close to 28,000 cubic metres per year, which is more than four times the world average of 6,000 m3 /inhabitant/year. Water stress in parts of the Americas and caribbean region has fuelled a number of conflicts , as various sectors, including agriculture, hydroelectricity, mining and even drinking water and sanitation , are competing over scarce resources . Some of the major obstacles in securing effective allocation processes are connected to poor regulation, missing incentives and/or lack of investment. All these factors ultimately reflect the low value that is largely attributed to water resources in the region. The average proportion of wastewater that is safely treated is just below 40%. About a quarter of the river stretches in the region are affected by severe pathogenic contamination . The main source of this kind of pollution is domestic sewage .

  The Asia and the Pacific region is home to 60% of the world’s population but has only 36% of the world’s water resources , causing its per capita water availability to be the lowest in the world. Unsustainable water withdrawals are a major concern in the region, as some countries withdraw unsustainable proportions of their freshwater supply – exceeding half of the Total water availability – and seven of the world’s 15 biggest abstractors of groundwater are in Asia and the Pacific. Research suggests that  groundwater use will increase 30% by 2050. In addition to the low levels of per capita water availability, high levels of water pollution  are observed in the region, with more than 80% of the wastewater generated in the region’s developing countries not being treated .