What are the reasons for the present crisis?

Many factors are responsible. To mention but a few: increased and unsustainable agricultural and industrial use of water, deforestation and land-degradation that seriously change the water cycle, over-consumption and waste, pollution and population growth. But the crisis is aggravated by the prevailing economic system. Public and community control of water supply has drastically diminished over recent decades and years. Increasingly water is treated as a commercial good subject to market conditions. Many cases can be cited where privatisation of water resources has deprived the poor from access to water.

Beyond scarcity

Almost 900 million people do not have basic access to the life-saving 20 liters of daily clean water. The reasons are often not just water scarcity and the lack of financial resources. In many cases the needs and rights of marginalized communities are not given priority or they are even being contradicted. Poverty and power relations are reflected and reinforced in who has access to and control over water.

Find out more:

• Thirsty Souls & Parched Lands, a resource paper by Church World Service, affirms that access to water by communities and individuals is a human right. Water is essential to all life on the planet. Therefore, it is not a commodity to be privatized. Its supply and use must be managed through structures representing all sectors of the population, with emphasis on local communities.

• Waters of life (Lutheran World Information No. 9 / 2006 - pdf) This special LWI highlights some of the major debates about water including its privatization, accessibility, and the theological aspect among others. Also included are some examples from the LWF’s extensive involvement in this subject through its Department for World Service field programs.

• Violations of the human right to water (Ecumenical Water Network, Brot für die Welt, FIAN International - pdf) An introduction into the human right to water with cases.

• That lacking access to water cannot be seen just as a result of water scarcity is also reflected in the title and focus of the United Nation's Human Development Report 2006. Entirely dedicated to the crisis in water and sanitation, the report is titled "Beyond scarcity. Power, poverty and the global water crisis."