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2. The Big Question: What is the Most Pressing Health Crisis and How can it be Solved?
- Author:
- Devi Sridhar, Ernest C. Madu, Jeffrey L. Sturchio, Adel Mahmoud, Ariel Pablos-Mendez, Guy Carrin, Benjamin Mason Meier, and Michael E. Gyasi
- Publication Date:
- 06-2010
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- World Policy Journal
- Institution:
- World Policy Institute
- Abstract:
- It is perhaps the single most elusive question today—how to manage and care for the billions of people who will fall ill this year, often terminally, in nations rich and poor? In so many cases the status of health is a purely financial question. Far too often poor health is simply a question of ignorance or the absence of drugs, medical facilities, clean water and a healthy environment. To help inform the debate, World Policy Journal asked a panel of experts to weigh in on what they see as the most pressing health crisis today and how it can be solved.
- Topic:
- Health
- Political Geography:
- India
3. Privatization, Efficiency, Gender, Development, and Inequality—Transnational Conflicts Over Access to Water and Sanitation
- Author:
- Srini Sitaraman
- Publication Date:
- 01-2008
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Human Rights and Human Welfare - Review Essays
- Institution:
- Josef Korbel Graduate School of International Studies, University of Denver
- Abstract:
- The global supply of freshwater is finite and current estimates put freshwater availability at less than one-half of one percent of the total water stock. Intensive agriculture practices, rapid industrialization, and expanding population and urbanization are reducing freshwater supplies that are further stressed by climate change, placing enormous pressures on the already fragile environmental landscape. The World Wildlife Federation's (WWF) Dam Initiative report identifies twenty-one river basins around the world at severe risk of ecological degradation: topping the list is the Yangtze in China, La Plata in South America, Tigris and Euphrates in Turkey, and the Ganges and Brahmaputra in India (WWF 2004). Although dams have proved to be a boon for irrigation and generating hydroelectric power, they have also severely disrupted ecosystems by interrupting the flow of major rivers, destroying freshwater habitats and leading to the disappearance of unique species, such as the freshwater river dolphins; dams have uprooted the livelihood of millions of people who rely on the unaltered flow of river water, and they have also disrupted the structure of floodplain agriculture. India and China are two of the starkest examples of human dislocation, conflict, and environmental denudation caused by dams (Economy 2004). According to the World Bank, India's growing water crisis is resulting in “little civil wars”: (a) between states, (b) between different users in a river basin, (c) between communities and the state, (d) between farmers and the environment, and (e) between farmers and the city consumers (World Bank 2005). India's former Minister of Water Resources, Priyaranjan Das Munshi was quoted as saying, “I am not the Minister of Water Resources, but the Minister of Water Conflicts” (UNESCO 2006). The World Bank (2005: 5) report on India's Water Economy describes India's water situation, which is heavily dependent on unpredictable and seasonal monsoons, as turbulent and unsustainable in the long run.
- Topic:
- Development and Health
- Political Geography:
- China, Turkey, India, and South America
4. Healing the Enlightenment Rift: Rationality, Spirituality and Shared Waters
- Author:
- Aaron T. Wolf
- Publication Date:
- 10-2008
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of International Affairs
- Institution:
- School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University
- Abstract:
- Water management, by definition, is conflict management. Water, unlike other scarce, consumable resources, is used to fuel all facets of society, from biologies to economies to aesthetics to spiritual practice. Moreover, it fluctuates wildly in space and time, its management is usually fragmented and it is often subject to vague, arcane and/or contradictory legal principles. As such, there is no such thing as managing water for a single purpose—all water management is multi-objective and based on navigating competing interests. Within a nation, these interests include domestic users, agriculturalists, hydropower generators, recreators and environmentalists. Any two of the interests are regularly at odds, and the complexity of finding mutually acceptable solutions increases exponentially as more stakeholders are involved. Add international boundaries, and the difficulty grows substantially yet again.
- Topic:
- Health and International Law
- Political Geography:
- Pakistan, India, and Israel