Water is essential for life. However, it is distributed across the planet in such an unequal manner that 2,600 million people do not have access to suitable water treatment systems, some 1,100 million do not have access to clean water, and 1.8 million children die every year from diarrhoea and other diseases caused by unclean water and deficient treatment systems. Furthermore, climate change may heighten the water-related problems currently suffered by some 745 million people, all of which represents a major obstacle to development. Given the prospect of a world water crisis, a number of international commitments have been agreed, but the targets proposed ─ even though they are achievable ─ will still leave hundreds of millions of people without access to clean drinking water or basic treatment processes. Acknowledging the comprehensive management of water resources and of water basins as work units could become key factors in achieving greater efficiency for this scarce resource, provided that it is accompanied by financial funding and technological aid, as well as greater governability and institutional capacity. The cooperation experiences between countries that share part of their water resources unquestionably highlight the path to take in order to solve this and other crises.

ISSN: 1132-6107

60 pp.

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