Report states that the United Nations Institute of Water, Environment, and Health has placed Pakistan and 22 other countries in the “critically water insecure” category. Back in 1950s Pakistan was a water abundant country with about 6000 cubic meters per capita
On Thursday, the UN University released the Global Water Security 2023 Assessment, which stated that 33 countries from three different geographic regions have high levels of water security. All regions featured countries with low levels of water security.
In a press release announcing the report, the United Nations water experts revealed that they conducted the most recent assessment of the world’s water resources. The assessment showed that more than half of the global population still does not have access to managed drinking water and sanitation. Access to safe water is still a pipe dream for over 70 per cent or 5.5 billion people. Africa has the lowest levels of access, with only 15 per cent of the region’s population having access to safe water.
The press release said, “Three out of four people currently live in water-insecure countries. More people die from a lack of safe drinking water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) services than water-related disasters.”
Water Insecure Countries.
According to a Pakistan-based English daily, the experts found that the majority of the world’s population presently lived in water-insecure countries such as the Solomon Islands, Eritrea, Sudan, Ethiopia, Vanuatu, Afghanistan, Djibouti, Haiti, Papua New Guinea, Somalia, Liberia, St Kitts and Nevis, Libya, Madagascar, South Sudan, Micronesia, Niger, Sierra Leone, Yemen, Chad, Comoros, and Sri Lanka.
The press release reads, “This is a cause for major concern because water security is fundamental to development.”
Along with other European countries like Denmark, Luxembourg, Austria, Norway, Switzerland, Finland and Iceland, Ireland, France, Lithuania, Greece, Germany, the UK, Estonia, Italy, Latvia, Spain, Slovakia, Slovenia, Croatia, Czechia, Hungary, and Portugal, the report ranked Sweden as the country with the highest level of water security.
It was noted that the only countries to qualify for the water-secure category in the Americas were Canada and the United States, whereas the water-secure countries in the Asia Pacific region included New Zealand, Cyprus, Australia, Japan, Israel, Kuwait, and Malaysia, according to Dawn.
The report’s findings revealed that “abundant natural water availability did not necessarily ensure water security,” according to the news release.
The press release added, “Many countries in Africa, the Asia-Pacific and the Americas with abundant freshwater resources has high rates of WASH-attributed low economic value despite potentially high economic losses due to floods or droughts.”
The report’s additional findings stated that the global assessment, which took place midway through the Water Action Decade (2018-2028) and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, carried out a “multidimensional comparison” of the state of water security that impacts 7.8 billion people in 186 countries.
