Water: A tool to create a more peaceful world for all

Our Mother Earth is endowed with abundant resources such as minerals, arable land, tourist attractions, and water bodies.

Water is a precious renewable resource. All living things, such as plants, animals, and human beings, depend on water and cannot live without it. For instance, as human beings, we need water for drinking, cooking, washing clothes, cleaning our homes, and even growing our crops. 

Generally, water is the foundation of all life on our mother Earth. It plays a crucial role in our well-being and in maintaining cleanliness (sanitation), health, sustainability, and economic growth. However, the biggest question is, how can everyone access clean drinking water?

Access to clean drinking water is one of our human rights. However, despite its significant importance in our lives, 2.2 billion people are estimated by the World Health Organization (WHO) to lack access to it.  

Due to the crucial role of this precious resource in our lives, on March 22 each year, the world commemorates it as a special day, World Water Day.

The purpose of this day is to raise awareness of the challenges associated with this precious resource and encourage people to take the necessary actions towards addressing those challenges.

Water resources at our time are facing numerous challenges, including but not limited to rapid/high population growth, which increases demands on water resources, and climate change. 

Climate change has direct impacts on water resources (both quantity and quality of water). The increasing temperature causes droughts, making seasonal rivers and streams dry up. That affects water quantity by causing water scarcity. Thus, we should plant more trees as an adaptation strategy to climate change.

According to the UN, about half of the world’s population experiences severe water scarcity for at least part of the year, and nearly 650 million people struggle to find clean water. Women and girls are the most vulnerable groups affected by water scarcity. That is due to their household-related activities like fetching water, laundry, and cooking.

Climate change has impacts on the quality of water. For instance, heavy rainfall causes flooding, consequently affecting water quality (contaminating/polluting water). The contaminated drinking water may cause diarrhoea, cholera, dysentery, and typhoid, which may create high tension for community members.

Other challenges affecting water resources include the increasing demand and water needs from various sectors such as agriculture (irrigation), industry, and energy. No wonder billions of people will lack access to these crucial services in 2030 unless multiple strategic measures are introduced and implemented over time.  

Therefore, these sectors must cooperate through an integrated water resources management approach, to ensure economic growth for the country and people’s human rights.

The 2024 theme of World Water Day is Water for Peace. This theme aims to show that water can play a crucial role in promoting peace. When water resources are well managed, they can create peace, but when they are not, they can create instability and conflict. Similarly, when water is polluted, scarce (due to climate change), or when people have no access to or have unequal access to clean drinking water, the possibility for tensions to rise is high.

Water is also a trans-boundary resource. That means, it is shared by two or more countries. Thus, member states sharing water resources should work together to protect and conserve that resource because if there is no cooperation between them on shared water resources, it threatens social and international stability between them (causing instability and conflicts). Generally, access to water for all promotes stability and peace.

Success in addressing the water-related challenges will also help to attain Sustainable Development Goal 6 (SDG6) by 2030, which focuses on access to safe water, sanitation, and hygiene for all, as the most basic human need for health and well-being. 

Dr. Saumu Jumanne is a lecturer at the Dar es Salaam University College of Education (DUCE).