Privatization, efficiency, gender, development, and inequality—transnational conflicts over access to water and sanitation

Human Rights & Human Welfare, Annual, 2008 by Srini Sitaraman

Earth Democracy: Justice, Sustainability, and Peace by Vandana Shiva. Boston, MA: South End Press, 2005.

Gender, Water, and Development edited by Anne Coles and Tina Wallace. New York: Berg, 2005.

Dams and Development: Transnational Struggles for Water and Power by Sanjeev Khagram. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2004.

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The global supply of freshwater is finite and current estimates put freshwater availability at less than one-half of one percent of the total water stock. Intensive agriculture practices, rapid industrialization, and expanding population and urbanization are reducing freshwater supplies that are further stressed by climate change, placing enormous pressures on the already fragile environmental landscape. The World Wildlife Federation's (WWF) Dam Initiative report identifies twenty-one river basins around the world at severe risk of ecological degradation: topping the list is the Yangtze in China, La Plata in South America, Tigris and Euphrates in Turkey, and the Ganges and Brahmaputra in India (WWF 2004). Although dams have proved to be a boon for irrigation and generating hydroelectric power, they have also severely disrupted ecosystems by interrupting the flow of major rivers, destroying freshwater habitats and leading to the disappearance of unique species, such as the freshwater river dolphins; dams have uprooted the livelihood of millions of people who rely on the unaltered flow of river water, and they have also disrupted the structure of floodplain agriculture. India and China are two of the starkest examples of human dislocation, conflict, and environmental denudation caused by dams (Economy 2004). According to the World Bank, India's growing water crisis is resulting in "little civil wars": (a) between states, (b) between different users in a river basin, (c) between communities and the state, (d) between farmers and the environment, and (e) between farmers and the city consumers (World Bank 2005). India's former Minister of Water Resources, Priyaranjan Das Munshi was quoted as saying, "I am not the Minister of Water Resources, but the Minister of Water Conflicts" (UNESCO 2006). The World Bank (2005: 5) report on India's Water Economy describes India's water situation, which is heavily dependent on unpredictable and seasonal monsoons, as turbulent and unsustainable in the long run. Environmental pollution is so extreme in China that analysts argue that it is likely to produce severe domestic and international challenges to the ruling Communist Party (Kahn and Yardley 2007). It is estimated that about one-half of China's population (six hundred million) live in areas experiencing severe water stress (Kahn and Yardley 2007). China's damming of the Mekong River is producing tensions with its downstream users in Laos, Vietnam, and Cambodia. Water conflicts and environmental problems are not limited to the developing world; bitter intrastate water wars are also brewing among the seven states that share the Colorado River Basin--Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, New Mexico, California, Arizona, and Nevada--because of the fragmentation of the Colorado River caused by damming, diversion, and a persistent drought produced by systemic climate change (Archibold and Johnson 2007).

Scholars of international relations have expressed growing concerns about the possibility of militarized intrastate and interstate conflicts over environmental resources, particularly over shared water resources (Homer-Dixon 1999; Kahl 2006). Climate scientists predict that alteration in weather patterns will further disrupt dependable supplies of water for drinking and irrigation thereby dislocating the lives of millions of people (Struck 2007: A08). Undoubtedly, the escalating water crisis has emerged as a major global public policy issue (Gleick and Cain 2004). One of the ambitious objectives of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals is to reduce by half "the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation" by 2015 (United Nations 2006). Although household water requirements represent a very small fraction--less than five percent--of the total water use, great inequality persists in accessing clean water and proper sanitation. In the developing world, 1.1 billion people lack adequate access to clean water, which means they use less than five liters per day, and 2.6 billion have no access to basic sanitation, while individuals in Europe and the United States utilize two hundred and four hundred liters per day respectively (UNDP 2006: 34). Inequality in access to water and sanitation is particularly acute in Latin America, South Asia, South-East Asia, and Sub-Saharan Africa where urban residents have access to piped water connections, and also possess the ability to pay for additional supplies as needed, but slum-dwellers and rural residents have little or no access or do not have the ability to pay for such services. According to the United Nations, at the very minimum everyone needs at least twenty liters of clean water per day to lead a healthy and productive life (UNDP 2006: 6). Lack of clean water availability and poor sanitation results in diseases such as cholera, shigellosis, diarrhea, and amebic dysentery, which causes 1.8 million childhood deaths and 443 million school days are lost each year (UNDP 2006: 45). Sub-Saharan African states loose more than five percent of their gross domestic product (GDP) because of health costs and lost productivity caused by lack of access to clean water and good sanitation. Provision of segregated toilets in schools has become an absolute necessity to increase the frequency of school attendance by girls because gender inequalities in accessing water and sanitation fall disproportionately on women (Burrows, Acton, and Maunder 2004).