Managing water resources is a major challenge to mankind. International cooperation is investing heavily in it. The stakes are high and the themes are closely related to development issues. The stakes of water management can be described in terms of health, hygiene, and food, and in social, economic, financial, environmental, political and geopolitical terms

Stakes connected to sanitation.

Water is the number one direct or indirect cause of mortality and morbidity. Lack of access to potable water kills three million children under the age of five every year. (The equivalent of the population of Paris). Epidemics of malaria and dengue fever are the most far sweeping epidemics in the world in terms of number of people affected (many hundreds of millions). These diseases are transmitted by mosquitoes whose larva develop in stagnant waters found in many ill sanitised environments. They can be traced directly back to poor control over the water supply

Stakes connected to food.

Water is essential in growing food crops. An estimated 40% of the world’s food comes from irrigated agriculture. In the future, population growth and changing dietary patterns will require additional agricultural production which will have to mean using water in agriculture more efficiently.

Social stakes.

Over a billion people are deprived access to potable water, and for 2.4 billion water purification installations are not reliable. The poorest people, who live in the rural and periurban zones in developing countries are the worst stricken. In these population groups, women and children are generally responsible for fetching water. Inhabitants of the most disadvantaged districts pay the highest price for water, up to twenty times more than the centre-city price, and what they receive is poor quality.

Economic stakes.

Flooding accounts for 32% of the natural catastrophes, 55% of mortality rate and 31% of the costs connected to catastrophes. World water consumption paid by users, mainly in the cities, is about 300 billion dollars per year, which represents 1% of the gross world product.

Financial stakes.

Annual investments in the water sector amount to about 75 billion euros, and can be broken down as follows : government and national public sector 48 billion, private national sector including communities 14 billion, official development aid 9 billion, multinationals 4 billion. Total funding requirements are estimated at 180 billion euros per annum during the next 25 years.

Environmental stakes.

Half of the great rivers and lakes of the world are polluted. Since the beginning of the 20th century, half of the wetlands have disappeared. In the fresh waters, biodiversity has decreased by half. The aquifers are being increasing overexploited and polluted. The demand for water, a depletable natural resource, is constantly going up even as the resource is being degraded. This is a trend that is growing worse. Last, problems connected to climate changes concern water resources first and foremost.

Political and geopolitical stakes.

Two out of three major rivers and aquifers, in other words, more than 300 in the world, flow beyond national borders. Forty percent of the people depend on shared waters. Fifteen percent of the world’s countries receive more than 50% of their waters from countries located upstream. There are very few international management agreements, although the 1949 Geneva Convention prohibits armed attacks on dams.

Urban growth is a continuing phenomenon : 16% of the world’s population lived in urban areas in 1900, 45% in 1990, and close to 320 cities now have more than one million inhabitants. This means that 25% of the people’s needs are concentrated in 5% of the surface of the globe (bearing in mind the needs of industries that are concentrated in urban zones).

Although actions have to be considered at the regional and local levels, water is a global problem linked to various fields such as climate change, world food security and health.

Further, the water sector is a good illustration of issues connected to aid programmes, e.g. the position of women, participation of resident populations, good governance, health improvement, the impact of development on the environment, conflict prevention, private sector development, public-private partnerships, capacity building. The question of water lies at the heart of many major currents that structure life such as democratisation, decentralisation, organisation of the civil society, sustainable management, poverty reduction and reflection on the world’s public assets. The water sector can be used to see how these issues are treated tangible.

In this context, France has a special role to play because of its rich, varied, long experience, its will to strengthen international solidarity, its pledge to develop partnerships with the countries of the South which are often the most directly concerned with the challenge of water management.In 1995, 400 million people were living in countries suffering from water stress. In 2025, they will be 4 billion, in other words 50% of the world’s population will be living in regions with no access to fresh water.

According to a UNDP report in 2006, 90% of the population of the Middle East and North Africa will be living in countries affected by water scarcity by the year 2025.

By 2025, domestic consumption will rise by about 40% and consumption for irrigation (which today
accounts for 70% of abstractions) by 17%.

Current investments in the field of water are about 75 billion Euros per year, split as follows : governments and national public sector (48 billion), national private sector, including local authorities (14 billion), public development aid (9 billion), and multinationals (4 billion).

Total financing needs are estimated at 180 billion Euros per year for the next 25 years.