Water for Peace and Harmony

Most of us take water for granted. However, clean drinking water is essential for human life, and in these days of high temperature reaching 94°F, many people experience dehydration, and we need to drink about six litres of water a day. 
Next month, the United Nations marks World Water Day, and the theme is ‘water for peace’. In a statement, the UN says, water can create peace or spark conflict. When water is scarce or polluted, or when people have unequal or no access, tensions can rise among communities and countries. More than 3 billion people worldwide depend on water that crosses national borders. Yet, only 24 countries have cooperation agreements for all their shared water.
As impacts of climate change increase and populations grow, there is an urgent need, within and among countries, to unite around protecting and conserving our most precious resource.

According to the UN, public health and prosperity, food and energy systems, economic productivity and environmental integrity all rely on a well-functioning and equitably managed water cycle.
Explaining how to create a ripple effect, the UN says, when we cooperate on water, we create a positive ripple effect, fostering harmony, generating prosperity and building resilience to shared challenges. We must act upon the realization that water is not only a resource to be used and competed over – it is a human right, intrinsic to every aspect of life. This World Water Day, we all need to unite around water and use water for peace, laying the foundations of a more stable and prosperous tomorrow.
The UN says, water can create peace or spark conflict. When water is scarce or polluted, or when people struggle for access, tensions can rise. By cooperating on water, we can balance everyone’s water needs and help stabilize the world.
Prosperity and peace rely on water. As nations manage climate change, mass migration and political unrest, they must put water cooperation at the heart of their plans. Water can lead us out of crisis. We can foster harmony among communities and countries by uniting around the fair and sustainable use of water – from UN conventions at the international level, to actions at the local level.
Giving some examples, the UN says how in the northern Senegalese fishing village of Ngaolé, local residents intone long traditional poems, known as “pekaans”, to placate the water spirits on the nearby Senegal River. The fishermen and their communities believe these lyrics help offer protection from the teeming crocodiles on the red muddy banks. But crocodiles aren’t the only challenge faced by people in this part of the country, just a short distance from the Sahara Desert.

For Ousmane Ly, a 59-year-old pastoralist living near the village, eking out a livelihood is becoming ever tougher. He says, he and his fellow herders have dwindling numbers of animals, which they’ve had to move ever earlier in the year and further afield to find grazing. Apart from the obvious factors of climate change and prolonged drought, together with the overuse of groundwater and pollution, Ousmane sees the causes as a surging population, the expansion of surrounding villages and the demand for water from nearby large-scale irrigation projects.
All this adds up to trigger growing competition over water between farmers and herders. Moving from one place to another, pastoralists need water for their livestock, but farmers are not always willing to share their limited water resources.
These are precisely the tensions that an assessment of water tenure in this area by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization aims at addressing. The process looks at the relations that people have around water resources, whether based on formal laws and regulations or custom and tradition. The goal is to promote social cohesion and peace among different water users.
Many people, especially in developing countries, rely on customary rules which have been in existence for generations, rather than formal legal rights.  It’s easy to see how the two can be at odds.
American polymath, a leading writer, scientist, inventor statesman, diplomat, printer, publisher, and political philosopher, Benjamin Franklin says, “When the well is dry, we know the worth of water”, while one of the world’s greatest statesmen Mahatma Gandhi says, “The earth, the air, the land, and the water are not an inheritance from our forefathers, but on loan from our children. So we have to handover to them, at least as it was handed over to us.”