The Costs of Water Insecurity

The post-Rio +20 discussion has focused a great deal on trade-offs between the global environment and the global economy. This sort of thinking obscures the extent to which global trends like increasing competition over scarce resources not only threatens both national and human security but actually threatens long-term economic stability as well. In an interview for the Woodrow Wilson Center, explorer and a co-founder of Earth Eco International, Alexandra Cousteau explains how this relates to the global use of water.

The New Security Beat blog, a project of the Woodrow Wilson Center which emphasises the connections between population, health and environment policies for global security, have picked up on the importance of this issue at a time of continuing global economic crisis. The false trade-off between environmental sustainability and economic recovery was reflected in the Rio+20 talks. While the talks produced a laudable outcome document on “The Future We Want” which calls for “integrated and sustainable management of natural resources and ecosystems that supports, inter alia, economic, social and human development” very little of substance on the most pressing environmental and development issues emerged from the meeting. The talks were by and large overshadowed by economic crises in Europe and elsewhere with the predictable result that short-term and competitive impulses outweighed long-term and strategic discussions.

Alexandra Cousteau’s interview highlights that a healthy economy is dependent upon sustainable approaches to resources such as fresh water supplies. One of the key reasons for this is that increased competition over water creates insecurity of many different kinds (sometimes with the potential for conflict) – and this is never good news for growth and development.

The full New Security Beat article with an excerpt from Alexandra Cousteau’s interview is available here.

Image source: Oxfam International.