Source Post: http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/05/the-coming-global-water-crisis/256896/

MAY 9 2012, 7:31 AM ET

What happens when demand for this essential resource starts exceeding supply in many parts of the world?

The recent UN alert that drought in the Sahel threatens 15 million lives is a harbinger of things to come.

In the next twenty years, global demand for fresh water will vastly outstrip reliable supply in many parts of the world. Thanks to population growth and agricultural intensification, humanity is drawing more heavily than ever on shared river basins and underground aquifers. Meanwhile, global warming is projected to exacerbate shortages in already water-stressed regions, even as it accelerates the rapid melting of glaciers and snow cover upon which a billion people depend for their ultimate source of water.

This sobering message emerges from the first U.S. Intelligence Community Assessment of Global Water Security. The document predicts that by 2030 humanity’s “annual global water requirements” will exceed “current sustainable water supplies” by forty percent. Absent major policy interventions, water insecurity will generate widespread social and political instability and could even contribute to state failure in regions important to U.S. national security. (Look here for a webcast from the Woodrow Wilson Center of experts and U.S. government officials discussing the findings.)

The simultaneous ubiquity and scarcity of water is one of Earth’s little ironies. Globally, 97.5 percent of H2O is contained in world’s oceans. Of the planet’s “fresh” water (the residual 2.5%), more than two-thirds is encased in ice packs and glaciers, particularly in Antarctica and Greenland, another thirty percent in groundwater, and almost one percent in high latitude permafrost. That leaves us with about 0.4 percent of global fresh water to account for: about two-thirds of that is contained in freshwater lakes, with the rest distributed among soil moisture (12 percent), the atmosphere (9.5 percent), wetlands (8.5 percent), rivers (1.5 percent) and vegetation (1 percent).

The need for reliable sources of fresh water is as old as our species, of course. What is new today is the combustible combination of surging global demand for increasingly scarce fresh water in certain volatile regions of poor governance. Several factors are driving this trend.

Dispatches about Planet Earth See full coverage

• Demographic pressure: By 2025, the world’s population will swell from seven to nearly eight billion. The vast majority of this increase will occur in the developing world, particularly Africa. In rapidly expanding urban centers, demand for fresh water will rise for personal consumption, sanitation, industry, and hydroelectric use.
• Declining Fresh H2O supplies: According to Global Water Security, “one third of the world’s population will live near water basins where the water deficit will be larger than 50 percent by 2030.” Many regions that are already experiencing water stress will become “extremely more stressed” or even “exceptionally more stressed.” In some areas, rapid depletion of underground aquifers will be the culprit. In others it will be reductions in meltwater as glaciers recede. In the Andes, hundreds of glaciers will simply disappear in coming decades, eliminating dry season water supplies. Similar, though more gradual, dynamics will be at play in the Himalayas, sometimes referred to as the world’s “third pole”.
• Changing dietary preferences: Meanwhile, the global middle class will surge from 1.8 to 4.9 billion by 2030. Wealthier populations will consume more meat, requiring a shift to more energy and water-intensive agriculture focusing on the raising of livestock and feed grain. Already today, some 93 percent of fresh water consumed is devoted to agriculture (from a combination of riverine, lake, and groundwater sources). Without massive behavioral changes, changing land use and food consumption patterns will place even greater pressures on fresh water resources.
• Poor Water Management: Adapting to a new era of water scarcity will require enormous investments in integrated water management, particularly in the developing world. This would include improving agricultural efficiency through new irrigation systems and drought-resistant crops; renovating infrastructure to reduce urban “water leakage” (which averages 30-50 percent in many cities); clarifying rights to the use of subterranean, riverine, and lacustrine water resources; and introducing pricing mechanisms that reflect the true economic value of water–admittedly a politically volatile step in societies where free (or cheap) access to water is viewed as an inherent, longstanding right.

Significantly, the intelligence community does not predict that increased competition for water resources will, by itself, be a source of violent conflict–a finding borne out by a rich body of research. And yet the same document warns that water stress may well “contribute to the risk of instability and state failure,” particularly “when combined with poverty, social tensions, environmental degradation, ineffectual leadership, and weak political institutions.” The accompanying map makes clear that many of the countries likely to be hardest hit are fragile and/or authoritarian states located within the broad arc of instability encompassing North Africa, the Horn, the Arabian Peninsula, and southwest, central, and south Asia. In other words, states least able to cope.

Regional tensions over shared river basins will also rise. States will use diplomatic and other leverage to preserve their water interests, and “upstream” states will be tempted to use water as a diplomatic weapon, including by threatening to impede flow. Nonstate actors, notably terrorists and other extremists, may also seek to sabotage dams and other infrastructure.

Regional stability and peace, therefore, increasingly depend on effective management of the world’s 263 shared international water basins. “Today, water basin agreements often do not exist or are inadequate.” Analyzing the current capacity to manage seven major water basins, Global Water Security assesses mechanisms to govern the Brahmaputra and Amu Darya to be “inadequate,” and those governing the Tigris-Euphrates, the Nile, and the Mekong as “limited.” (The Indus and the Jordan rivers earn a higher, “moderate” score.)

By revealing the scale and consequences of global water crisis, the intelligence community has performed a great service. But the policy response to date has been just a drop in the bucket.

This article originally appeared at CFR.org, an Atlantic partner site.

By David McKenzie, CNN

Updated 6:22 PM EDT, Mon March 12, 2012

Koro, Uganda (CNN) – One of the abducted boys featured in the viral video demanding the capture of infamous warlord Joseph Kony is now a man and says the time for justice has arrived.

Jacob Acaye, now 21, revisited the village where he was abducted by Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army to tell why Kony’s crimes should not be forgotten.

His story has touched millions since it was featured in “Kony 2012,” a video from the Invisible Children charity that created a global online buzz and renewed public interest in capturing Kony.

Critics have questioned the film’s accuracy and warned that it oversimplified the situation in Uganda.

Kony first unleashed his fury in eastern Africa more than two decades ago and is wanted for crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court.

The LRA terrorized Uganda in a brutal campaign against the government and civilian population. Since 2006, when it was pushed out of northern Uganda, it has largely operated in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Central African Republic.

Invisible Children aimed to make Kony a household name and drum up global support to end the murders, rapes, abductions and other abuses committed by the LRA.

Acaye — sitting a few meters from where he was abducted — told CNN: “Whenever a brother is in a problem, whenever anybody is in a problem, it should get the attention of everyone in the world.

“It has been going on for the last 26 years. It shows that we are failing to solve it. And if there are any means that someone can help and it goes to end, then why not Americans get involved.

“For me the criticism [of "Kony 2012"] is unfair, because if I am to say it is fair then I wouldn’t be here. Right now I wouldn’t have been able to go to school. You wouldn’t have been able to speak to me right now because I had no hope in my life. I reached even a point when I said, ‘I can even die now’ because I thought it would be the immediate resolution of my suffering, you know.”

Acaye’s home was Koro, a small dusty village — a handful of circular huts off the main north-south road. There is little more than a track through the village and the occasional cockerel wanders from hut to hut.

As Acaye squatted down on the edge of Koro he said he has watched an earlier version of the Kony film, but added “It brings [back] a lot of memories. Sometimes I get sad when I watch it.”

LRA rebels raided Koro in the middle of the night, smashing down the door in the hut where he was sleeping. He says they took 40 children that night.

Acaye said his brother tried to escape the LRA but was captured and executed. It was the sight of his brother being killed that made Acaye realize he had no choice but to try to escape.

He managed to reach the town of Gulu, about 11 kilometers (7 miles) from his village, and a shelter where he found safety.

Now, after more than five years of peace in Northern Uganda many wonder if the online movie highlighting Kony’s crimes is too late.

Acaye is now chasing the childhood ambition he thought was lost forever — studying law in Uganda’s capital, Kampala.

He says the LRA has left his village but justice must be done.

Original CNN Blog Post (And related video link) Here: http://www.cnn.com/2012/03/12/world/africa/uganda-kony-abductee/index.html

We looked at libraries and community centers as the short-term answer to at least create a public place for those wanting access to the new technologies and information sources we were developing. It was a battle to get the funds and create the spaces, but what we did then is now being repeated on a much broader scale, thanks to the reduction in equipment prices, but also the financial interests of those bringing mobile finance to the developing world.

Virtual Banks and ATMs are a major driving force behind the explosive use of Internet tech by the poorest of the world citizens. These new resources and connections will have an amazing impact on health care and other services as the applications and necessary funds are brought to those in need over the next few years. At the same time, new freedoms and awareness we be enjoyed by those using the devices below, and more to come…as I’d change the title of the article below to “…Will Change the Developing World.” …Frank Kliewer

5 Tech Innovations That Could Change the Developing World

October 12, 2011 by Zoe Fox12 

Across the developing world, new technologies are helping to distribute resources for education, connectivity and health far and wide. Innovators are finding ways to make technology cheaper and therefore accessible to millions previously excluded by high costs.

Affordability is often the greatest hurdle to overcome in products from sanitation devices to tablet computers, mobile phones to solar panels.

Take a look at these five tech breakthroughs and how they are helping to level the playing field in developing countries.

1. Inexpensive Tablets

One week after Amazon released the Kindle Fire, the first tablet computer to present a serious threat toApple‘s iPad, another historic tablet was released. On the other side of the world on October 5, India launched the world’s cheapest tablet, Aakash, priced at just $35 for students with government subsidies or $60 in stores, which the government hopes will reduce the digital divide between rich and poor.

If that price — roughly one-tenth the cost of the cheapest iPad — doesn’t sound accessible enough, the Indian government is distributing the first 100,000 units of the Android-powered tablet to college students for free, Reuters reports. “The rich have access to the digital world, the poor and ordinary have been excluded. Aakash will end that digital divide,” said Kapil Sibal, India’s minister of communications and information technology.

The tablet was developed by DataWind, a small British company, with researchers from the Indian Institute of Technology. In addition to fitting the price to the budget of middle class Indians, the device was tested playing two hours of video at 118 degrees Fahrenheit to replicate the oppressive heat of northern India’s summers.

2. Inexpensive Laptops

One Laptop Per Child‘s XO and Intel’s Classmate PC share a common mission: Bringing children access to education through computer ownership. Both programs distribute rugged, affordable laptops to schoolchildren across the developing world.

Intel developed a suite of educational software to accompany the little blue laptop, which costs between $400 and $500 each to distribute. These programs enable teachers to communicate with their students through web-based applications. The computer features a swivel screen, essentially converting the laptop into a touch-tablet. Its durability was tested by baking it in an oven and placing it in a freezer.

Similarly, One Laptop Per Child donates rugged, low-cost laptops that don’t even require an electric outlet. The $200 computers are distributed to students between ages 6-12, so that they are integrated into their early education. Take a look at the video above to learn more about the non-profit’s work.

3. Inexpensive Mobile Phones

As mobile phone ownership rapidly spreads across the developing world, many have tried to create the world’s cheapest cellphone — even Venezuela’s president Hugo Chavez.

Today, Vodafone 150 can claim that title, selling a mobile phone for just under $15. While the phone is not feature-rich, it offers voice calling, text messaging and mobile payments, and it will have an enormous impact on those who have never before connected by mobile. A slightly more expensive Vodafone 250 model is available with an FM radio and color screen.

The phone was launched in 2010 in India, Turkey and eight African nations. Of course, entering into these new markets meant a lot of work to extend the mobile coverage area by the provider.

4. Alternative Energy

SunSaluter: $10,000 Winner of the EcoLiving 2011 Student Leadership Award from Scotiabank’s EcoLiving on Vimeo.

SunSaluter, winner of the Startups for Good challenge, aims to bring solar panels to villages in the developing world that have never had access to electricity. While solar energy is a hot topic across the world, its expense has prevented deeper penetration. Eden Full, a mechanical engineering undergraduate at Princeton University, developed solar panels that optimize energy collection as they rotate to face the sun for as much time as possible each day. The system costs just $10 and uses 40% fewer panels than typical solar energy thanks to its rotations.

5. Improved Sanitation

Bill Gates emphasized the importance of sanitation improvements when he pledged to reinvent the toilet for the developing world.

The computer innovator has a point. According to water.org, one billion people don’t have access to clean water, and 2.5 billion people don’t have improved sanitation. So it should come as no surprise that improving sanitation is key to the progress of developing countries.

While cheap laptops and tablets are certainly exciting, some of the life improving technologies in the developing world don’t even require electricity. Last year, India’s Tata Chemicals released the Tata Swach(the Hindi word for clean), an affordable water filter (priced at around $21) that uses nanotechnology, requires no electricity and meets the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency‘s sanitation standards.

The filter is made of rice husk ash (the natural byproduct of making polished rice) and fine nano-silver particles to prohibit bacteria growth. Using the filter prevents against waterborne bacteria and viruses. When Swach was released, Tata said only 6% of urban households and 1% of rural households in India were using water purification devices.

Originating Post:

http://mashable.com/2011/10/12/tech-developing-countries/