Six months into the World Health Organization (WHO) declaration of COVID-19 as a global pandemic, many countries, including the United States, are still struggling to contain the spread of the virus which, as of this writing, has taken 744,649 lives globally. Before mask-wearing was recommended as the simplest and most effective defense against contagion, epidemiologists and public health experts recommended regular handwashing with soap and practicing social distancing as fundamental to curbing the spread of the COVID-19 virus. Briefly it appeared as if WASH (water, sanitation, and hygiene) services were actually being accorded the importance they deserved. The critical need for water for handwashing, the millions who lack regular supplies of both water and soap, and the difficulties of social distancing in settlements where thousands share a single toilet with no soap were finally headline news.  

The U.S. Agency for International Development revamped its Water Office this spring, renaming it the Center for Water Security, Sanitation, and Hygiene, and adding it to the Bureau for Resilience and Food Security. In this month’s top post, Stephanie Cappa and Sarah Davidson highlight the importance of this shift for elevating water security as a central development issue, and call for increased attention and support to build more resilience and sustainability into food and water systems.

The Chinese government is fighting a war on pollution on multiple fronts to protect its air, water, and soil. Despite passage of the stringent Water Ten Plan in 2015, water quality still has not met anticipated targets in one-third of the country. But one Chinese pollution control success story was Beijing’s investments in municipal wastewater treatment plants in the run up to the 2008 Olympics. 

Trouble is brewing on the Nile. For years, use of the river was mainly about the needs of Egypt, by far the largest and most powerful riparian country in the basin. But since the Arab Spring of 2011, the situation has changed considerably. Egypt’s troubles over the last decade have weakened its ability to project power southward, while upper riparian states—Ethiopia in particular—have enjoyed a period of economic growth and relative stability, which has led them to look at the great river as an important national resource. Tensions have come to a head since Ethiopia announced the construction of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), construction of which is now almost complete. Once full, the resulting reservoir will be larger than the whole of Greater London. Much of the water it holds would have previously reached Sudan and Egypt largely unhindered.

Is the world doomed to be ever-more tumultuous? For years, headlines have suggested that climate change causes or acts as a threat multiplier for violent conflicts. For example, climate change-influenced drought has been labeled a cause of the Syrian conflict and the war in Darfur. Natural hazard-related disasters (“disasters”) like earthquakes that are not related to climate change have also been connected to an increased risk of violent social conflict and political instability. The narratives are often that disasters displace people who then put pressure on already-strained resources and infrastructure in receiving areas, and that disaster-stricken people fight over limited resources in their struggle for survival.

“Reproductive justice is the right to reproductive health care, and the right to have children or not, the right to the healthiest possible pregnancy and birth, and the right to raise children in a safe and healthy environment. These rights will be challenged by climate change, including increasing temperatures,” said Linda Goler Blount, President and CEO of the Black Women’s Health Imperative, at a recent webinar on the intersections of environmental and reproductive justice on maternal health, climate change, and birth outcomes. The webinar was held on Juneteenth, the holiday commemorating the end of slavery in the United States, and many panelists’ remarks amplified the significance of the date. “Make this Juneteenth another beginning. One where we commemorate the end of climate injustice for Black and Brown people who bring life into this world,” said Blount.