The Real Challenges Are Not Technical, but Political
Few people would argue with the idea that the world has a serious problem with water. For the past several years, water has consistently been named as a leading risk in the World Economic Forum’s annual survey of global leaders, and newspapers worldwide are awash with stories warning of a water crisis. But a funny thing happens between the headlines: surprisingly little. Even in the case of Cape Town, which earlier this year proclaimed a water supply crisis that experts believed could literally cause taps to run dry, city officials blithely announced earlier this month that no emergency was imminent after all. So, is the world really facing a water crisis? The answer is yes—but not in the way most people think. The truth is, most of the world’s water woes can be solved with enough money and willpower. The real challenges are not technical or hydrological but political and ethical. The world’s water crisis, as it turns out, is really more of an existential one. But it’s one that poses plenty of real-world foreign policy challenges. Read more
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