Imagine not having clean water from your tap.
Picture brown, undrinkable water gushing out.
Imagine being unable to flush your toilet.
Picture a river filled with used plastic bottles and garbage,
where kids still play, unconscious of the danger.
Imagine your home destroyed by a flood.
This isn’t just a story — it’s the reality for millions of people.
The ripple affecting water security
In 2022, 2.2 billion people had no access to safely managed drinking water and 3.5 billion people lacked safely managed sanitation. Between 2019 and 2021 alone, an estimated 314 million people were affected by droughts, floods and landslides caused by heavy rains. More than 40% of the world’s population live in water-stressed areas. This comes at a huge cost for governments and society at large: droughts, floods, and storms could wipe out USD 5.6 trillion from global GDP between 2022 and 2050. Currently, around 80% of marine pollution originates from land-based sources such as untreated sewage.
The cost of water pollution exceeds billions of US dollars annually in OECD countries.
Oriana Romano
The good news is that the issue of water is gaining traction in the international arena. The UN 2023 Water Conference – the first of its kind organised in almost half a century – generated 700 commitments towards a water-secure world. Freshwater is becoming an increasingly important part of climate COPs, and this year’s COPs on biodiversity and desertification should be no exception. The governments of France and Kazakhstan will also gather Heads of State in the One Water Summit in September 2024.
But are these efforts enough? The simple answer is no.
Building new infrastructure to achieve SDG 6 on water and sanitation will cost around USD 114 billion per year by 2030, excluding the cost of operating and maintaining them. Moreover, billions of dollars are lost every year due to corruption and integrity failures: it is estimated that from 6% to 26% of the total costs of urban water and sanitation projects could be lost to corruption. This impacts people’s health and well-being, slows down economic growth and harms the environment. What’s more, water infrastructure is often targeted in conflicts: in 2021, 127 conflicts involved water: in 78 of them, water acted as a conflict trigger; in 47 cases, water infrastructure was a target.
No water, no peace
The theme of the 2024 World Water Day is water for peace: across countries, users, people and generations. There can be no peace without proper rules of the game, fair play and a referee – in other words, without good governance. For instance, the International Commission for the Protection of the Rhine (ICPR), across nine states and regions in the Rhine watershed, mitigates potential conflicts among riparian states, through co-operation and joint projects to reduce pollution and manage floods.
Similarly, Australia’s Murray-Darling Basin Authority works with basins, industries and communities to ensure that the needs of water users and the environment are met, reducing current and future disputes over water usage. The International Boundary and Water Commission (IBWC) facilitates co-operation on sanitation, water quality, and flood control between the United States and Mexico in the Colorado and Rio Grande rivers.
The OECD Principles on Water Governance, which will soon celebrate their 10th anniversary, help governments and stakeholders understand not only what to do, but how, why, with whom, and at which scale. Water governance is a means to an end: only through it we can avoid conflicts, manage trade-offs, improve equal access to water services and tackle water-related risks.
Don’t think twice, get water governance right!
Oriana Romano is the Head of Unit, Water Governance, Blue and Circular Economy, Urban Policies, and Sustainable Development Division of the OECD Centre for Entrepreneurship, SMEs, Regions and Cities. In 2018, she initiated a Programme on the Circular Economy in Cities and Regions, which supports governments in developing and implementing circular economy strategies. She heads the OECD Water Governance programme, which she joined in 2013. Before the OECD, she was university lecturer in Environmental Economics at the “Centre for International Business and Sustainability”(CIBS), London Metropolitan University (London, United Kingdom) and the Department of Social Science of the University “L’Orientale”(Naples, Italy). She currently teaches “The Transition to the Carbon Neutral and Circular Economy in Cities ”at Sciences Po, Paris, France. She holds a Ph.D in “Institution, Economics and Law of Public Services”.