Eurasia And Eme Subcommittee on Europe

The Role of Water in Avoiding Conflict and Building Prosperity Eurasia And Eme Subcommittee on Europe

Access to clean water is absolutely essential to each and every human being. It is estimated that potentially billions of people in the coming decades will be living in water-stressed areas of the world. Without access to water and the implications that it holds for personal hygiene, agriculture, industry, far too many people will be forced to accept lower standards of living. This dynamic may spark conflicts over natural resources or destabilize very fragile governments. This is not only a question for the future. It is a problem of today. Every year, hundreds of thousands of children needlessly die from diseases caused by a lack of clean water, plus many more than those hundreds of thousands, many more will die from some disease that can be traced right back to a lack of clean water. The toll in human suffering caused by a lack of water and dirty water is great. The challenges of access to clean water, hygiene, and sanitization can be conquered, and we now have it within our grasp, technologically and with the amount of wealth available in our societies, to actually overcome this enormous challenge.