World Water Day

  Agrifood systems are a major source of employment and livelihoods. As of 2019, 36% of working women and 38% of working men were engaged in agrifood systems. In some regions, women’s involvement has been even higher. In Sub-Saharan Africa, 66% of employed women were reported to work in agrifood systems in 2023 compared to 60% of men. In Southern Asia, the 2023 reported figures rose to 71% of working women compared to 47% of men. The proportion of women working in agricultural production is higher in the poorest countries, where alternative livelihoods are not available. Often, women are unpaid family workers or casual workers in agriculture. On average, in 2023, women were reported to earn 18.4% less than men in wage employment in agriculture. Furthermore, women often have less control than men over the outcomes of their labour in agriculture. The degree to which they can decide on how to benefit from what they produce depends largely on intra-household power dynamics, which may b...

  Join global experts of the World Bank Group and the Global Water Security & Sanitation Partnership (GWSP), on March 19th, Starting at (09:00 EDT) for a live conversation on transforming water in agriculture and the launch of Nourish and Flourish report. Register to participate!

  The water bankruptcy concept rests on a simple but powerful analogy between hydrology and finance . In financial systems, bankruptcy is not declared because someone experiences a temporary cashflow problem; it is declared when an entity has spent beyond its means for so long, and accumulated such unsustainable debts, that it can no longer meet its obligations and the balance sheet itself must be reset. Applied to water, this analogy emphasizes three ideas:  First, water is a form of natural capital, not just a flow. Human–water systems draw on both annual “income” and long-term “savings”. Renewable water — rivers, lakes, reservoirs, renewable groundwater, soil moisture, snow—functions like a checking account. Non-renewable or very slowly renewable stocks— deep groundwater , long-residence aquifers, glaciers, some wetlands and peatlands—function like a savings account. Healthy ecosystems and soils, which regulate storage and flows, are also part of this capital. This capit...

  In 2022, the total area equipped for irrigation represented 23 percent of global cultivated land, an increase of 1.66 percent compared to 2015, when the share stood at 21.5 percent. Southern Asia had the highest proportion of cultivated land equipped with irrigation infrastructure , covering 46 percent of its total cultivated area in 2022, followed by Latin America and the Caribbean (32 percent) and Central Asia (25 percent). In contrast, sub-Saharan Africa had the lowest share, with only 3.8 percent of its cultivated land equipped for irrigation in the same year. Since 2015, Latin America and the Caribbean experienced the most significant growth inirrigated areas , with the share of cultivated land equipped for irrigation increasing from 17.4 percent in 2015 to 32 percent in 2022. In contrast, Western Asia and Central Asia saw a decline in irrigated land , with decreases of 1.96 percent and 1.78 percent respectively over the same period (Figure 11). At the national level, Bah...

Globally, Water Use efficiency (WUE) rose from 17.47 USD/m3 in 2015 to 21.50 USD/m3 in 2022, marking a 23 percent efficiency increase (Figure 15). Oceania and Europe and Northern America remained the most water efficient regions, with WUE levels of 71.71 USD/m3 and 54.64 USD/ m3 , respectively (Figure 16). However, Eastern, Central and Southern Asia recorded the highest growth in WUE between 2015 and 2022, with increases of 51.32 percent, 46.25 percent and 34.13 percent respectively. In contrast, Latin America and the Caribbean experienced a slight decline in WUE, decreasing by 0.47 percent over the same period. At the sectoral level, agriculture exhibited the lowest  Water Use Efficiency (WUE)  among economic sectors. In 2022, the global average WUE for agriculture was 0.69 USD/m3 , significantly lower than that of the industrial sector (38.43 USD/m3 ) and the service sector (114.45 USD/m3 ). However, agriculture recorded the largest improvement in Water Use Efficiency ove...

 In 2022, global water stress levels reached 18 percent. However, there were many regional variations. Northern Africa and Southern Asia displayed critical levels of water stress at 121 percent and 76.7 percent respectively, and high levels of water stress were observed in Central Asia (70.2 percent) and Western Asia (65.1 percent) placing enormous pressure on people, economies and ecosystems. Conversely, Europe and North America (12.3 percent), Latin America and the Caribbean (5.7 percent), Oceania (3.2 percent), South-eastern Asia (20.6 percent) and sub-Saharan Africa (6.3 percent) presented low levels of water stress. An upward trend in water stress levels was observed since 2015 in some regions, with Northern Africa, Western Asia and Oceania experiencing the most significant increases, rising by 15.6 percent, 12.9 percent and 12.3 percent, respectively, between 2015 and 2022. In contrast, Central Asia recorded a notable decrease, with water stress falling from 76.8 percent in...

  Although global food production has kept pace with population growth, close to 750 million people (or 10% of the global population) were exposed to severe levels of food insecurity in 2019. Unfortunately, this number has increased even further over the course of 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic and its economic impacts worldwide. Rainfed agriculture covers 80% of the world’s cropland and accounts for the major part (60%) of food production. Rainfed agriculture has a global water footprint of5,173 km3 per year . Irrigated agriculture covers about 20% of cultivated lands, yet it accounts for 40% of food production, and has a global water footprint of 2,230 km3 per year. The global water footprint related to crop production in the period 1996–2005 was 7,404 km3 per year, representing 92% of humanity’s water footprint . Despite striking economic growth in the past, there are still 2.1 billion poor people, of whom 767 million people live in extreme poverty. Of all people...

Global freshwater use has increased by a factor of six over the past 100 years and continues to grow at a rate of roughly 1% per year since the 1980s. Much of this growth can be attributed to a combination of population growth, economic development and shifting  consumption patterns . Agriculture currently accounts for 69% of global water withdrawals , which are mainly used for  irrigation but also include water used for livestock and aquaculture. This ratio can reach up to 95% in some developing countries (FAO, 2011a)  Industry (including energy and power generation) accounts for 19%, while municipalities are responsible for the remaining 12%. Globally, agriculture accounts for only about 4% of global Gross Domestic Product (GDP) with an average contribution per country of 10.39%, the trend being a decreasing share of GDP. Such figures suggest that the value added of water use in agriculture is very low. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations ...