• woodrow wilson center
  • ecsp

New Security Beat

Subscribe:
  • mail-to
  • Who We Are
  • Topics
    • Population
    • Environment
    • Security
    • Health
    • Development
  • Columns
    • China Environment Forum
    • Choke Point
    • Dot-Mom
    • Navigating the Poles
    • New Security Broadcast
    • Reading Radar
  • Multimedia
    • Water Stories (Podcast Series)
    • Backdraft (Podcast Series)
    • Tracking the Energy Titans (Interactive)
  • Films
    • Water, Conflict, and Peacebuilding (Animated Short)
    • Paving the Way (Ethiopia)
    • Broken Landscape (India)
    • Scaling the Mountain (Nepal)
    • Healthy People, Healthy Environment (Tanzania)
  • Publications
  • Events
  • Contact Us

NewSecurityBeat

The blog of the Wilson Center's Environmental Change and Security Program
Keith

Keith Schneider

Keith Schneider is senior editor and chief correspondent at Circle of Blue and helped develop the Global Choke Point project with the Wilson Center. A two-time winner of the George Polk Award and other honors for his work, he also reports on energy, agriculture, the environment, and policy for The New York Times, where he has served as a national correspondent and contributor since 1981.

  • Universal WASH Gains Traction Even as Hand Pumps Lose Ground: Troubled Water Supply Systems in Africa Spur Demand for New Technology

    ›
    WASH Within Reach  //  May 4, 2021  //  By Keith Schneider
    2019-05-Bangladesh-Coxs-Bazaar-refugee-camp-JGulland-IMG_5926.jpeg-Edit-2500-e1593179616621-1030x639

    This article originally appeared on Circle of Blue and is the third in the series, “WASH Within Reach: 50 years, $400 billion, and a global pandemic later – water, sanitation and hygiene define a moment in human history,” produced through a collaboration between Circle of Blue and the Wilson Center.

    With their blocky stamped metal heads and long arms, the India Mark II and Afridev hand water pumps are hardly aesthetically appealing. What matters is their design. That is, how well do they work?

    Introduced in the 1980s, manufactured by the millions, and installed in communities across Africa and Asia, the two hand pumps are the most popular tools for lifting water to the surface from rural underground reserves. In that capacity, the two pumps occupy prominent space in the WASH sector’s long-running and formative debate over whether the global campaign is succeeding or slipping in the effort to attain universal access to clean water, sanitation, and hygiene. 

    MORE
  • Innovation in Financing Brightens WASH Galaxy: Funding for Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Starts to Arrive Faster, With Clearer Requirements

    ›
    WASH Within Reach  //  April 27, 2021  //  By Keith Schneider
    Credit UNDP Bangladesh 2-Edit

    This article originally appeared on Circle of Blue and is the second in the series, “WASH Within Reach: 50 years, $400 billion, and a global pandemic later – water, sanitation and hygiene define a moment in human history,” produced through a collaboration between Circle of Blue and the Wilson Center.

    People devoted to financing water, sanitation and hygiene in developing nations worried for much of 2020. Utility customers stopped paying their water bills. Funders altered their priorities. Heads of state turned their attention to other virus-related emergencies.

    But did COVID-19 affect funding enough to slow progress toward universal access to clean water, safe sanitation, and hygiene? And if it did, by how much?

    MORE
  • Pandemic Brings WASH to Rare Inflection Point: Despite Fears of Collapse, Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene Draw Closer to Epic Goal

    ›
    WASH Within Reach  //  April 20, 2021  //  By Keith Schneider
    leadimage

    This article originally appeared on Circle of Blue and is the first in the series, “WASH Within Reach: 50 years, $400 billion, and a global pandemic later – water, sanitation and hygiene define a moment in human history,” produced through a collaboration between Circle of Blue and the Wilson Center.

    Until 2016, the agrarian residents of east Kenya’s Kitui county had never encountered a water quality monitor like Mary Musenya. Wearing a bright blue company jersey and furnished with sample bottles and plastic trays, the young Kenyan is a water safety officer for FundiFix, a tiny rural water supply service company. She is one of 20 staff who manage 130 pumps, plus pipes and water tanks that serve 82,000 people across a 1,000 square-mile service area in Kitui and Kwale counties. 

    MORE
  • Groundwater Scarcity, Pollution Set India on Perilous Course

    ›
    Choke Point  //  Guest Contributor  //  January 15, 2019  //  By Keith Schneider
    2017-07-India-Food-Water-Security-JGanter-B11A0433-Edit-2500

    This article first appeared on Circle of Blue as part of the multi-year Choke Point: India, a collaboration between Circle of Blue and the Wilson Center on the global implications of water, energy, and food challenges in India.

    Doula Village lies 55 kilometers (34 miles) northeast of New Delhi on a flat expanse of Uttar Pradesh farmland close to the Hindon River. Until the 1980s Doula Village’s residents, then numbering 7,000, and its farmers and grain merchants, thrived on land that yielded ample harvests of rice, millet, and mung beans. The bounty was irrigated with clean water transported directly from the river, or with the sweet groundwater drawn from shallow wells 7 meters (23 feet) deep.

    MORE
  • Water-Energy Nexus in the Himalayas

    ›
    August 8, 2017  //  By Keith Schneider & Chelsea Spangler
    Tehri-Dam

    This article is a summary of the chapter by Keith Schneider, senior editor and chief correspondent for Circle of Blue, in the new book, Water, Security and U.S. Foreign Policy. The book was produced by the World Wildlife Fund-US and edited by David Reed. The summary was prepared by Chelsea Spangler. 

    The region at the base of the Himalayas faces difficult tradeoffs when allocating freshwater resources for energy production versus agricultural, industrial, and domestic uses. This is one of the most ecologically unstable areas on Earth, and weather patterns are becoming increasingly irregular. On one end of the spectrum, water shortages frequently disrupt energy production, which depends largely on water-intensive coal and hydropower plants. The opposite extreme is also a factor: Dozens of hydropower plants in the Himalayas have been damaged or destroyed by severe floods caused by unusually heavy rainfall in recent years. Construction of new power plants faces increasing resistance from local communities, resulting in social disruptions and instability. In order to ensure both energy security and water security for their countries, governments must look beyond hydropower and coal.

    MORE
  • Tamil Nadu Leads India’s Historic Turn to the Sun and Wind

    ›
    Choke Point  //  June 7, 2017  //  By Keith Schneider
    Tuticorin-coal-plant

    The ninth and final story in a series of reports by Circle of Blue and the Wilson Center on the global implications of water, energy, and food challenges in the south Indian state of Tamil Nadu.

    MADURAI, India – Before he agreed to serve as minister of state and take command of his country’s mammoth energy production and distribution sector, Piyush Goyal developed one of India’s most spirited political careers. “A man of ideas and competence,” according to First Post, a prominent news organization, Goyal is an accountant and lawyer who rose to the peak of Indian economic and political culture as an investment banker, member of parliament, and treasurer of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.

    MORE
  • New Media Helps Galvanize Tamil Nadu to Fight a Toxic Legacy

    ›
    Choke Point  //  May 31, 2017  //  By Keith Schneider
    Jayaraman

    The eighth in a series of reports by Circle of Blue and the Wilson Center on the global implications of water, energy, and food challenges in the south Indian state of Tamil Nadu.

    KODAIKANAL, India – In the dogged community of eco-activists, journalists, local leaders, and artists that find common ground defending Tamil Nadu from rapacious development and rampant pollution, Nityanand Jayaraman stands out.

    MORE
  • The Right to Life and Water: Drought and Turmoil for Coke and Pepsi in Tamil Nadu

    ›
    Choke Point  //  May 18, 2017  //  By Keith Schneider
    protests

    The sixth in a series of reports by Circle of Blue and the Wilson Center on the global implications of water, energy, and food challenges in the south Indian state of Tamil Nadu.

    TIRUNELVELI, India – Just after dusk on a warm mid-January evening, attorney DA Prabakar greeted several visitors on the dimly lit street in front of his home here in southern India. The air was desert-dry and dusty in this rain-scarce river city.

    MORE
  Older Posts
View full site

Join the Conversation

  • RSS
  • subscribe
  • facebook
  • G+
  • twitter
  • iTunes
  • podomatic
  • youtube
Tweets by NewSecurityBeat

Trending Stories

  • unfccclogo1
  • Pop at COP: Population and Family Planning at the UN Climate Negotiations

Featured Media

Backdraft Podcast

play Backdraft
Podcasts

More »

What You're Saying

  • shutterstock_1858965709 Break the Bias: Breaking Barriers to Women’s Global Health Leadership
    Sarah Ngela Ngasi: Nous souhaitons que le partenaire nous apporte son soutien technique et financier.
  • shutterstock_1858965709 Break the Bias: Breaking Barriers to Women’s Global Health Leadership
    Sarah Ngela Ngasi: Nous sommes une organisation féminine dénommée: Actions Communautaires pour le Développement de...
  • hongqiao-liu1 As China Adjusts for “True Cost” of Rare Earths, What Does It Mean for Decarbonization?
    Anthony Maw: It is just another one of those "inconvenient truths". Western defense and security analysts often...

What We’re Reading

More »
  • woodrow
  • ecsp
  • RSS Feed
  • YouTube
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Home
  • Who We Are
  • Publications
  • Events
  • Wilson Center
  • Contact Us
  • Print Friendly Page

© Copyright 2007-2023. Environmental Change and Security Program.

Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. All rights reserved.

Developed by Vico Rock Media

Environmental Change and Security Program

Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars

Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center

  • One Woodrow Wilson Plaza
  • 1300 Pennsylvania Ave., NW
  • Washington, DC 20004-3027

T 202-691-4000