Water has lengthy been a instrument of warfare, however in recent times, the world has entered a darkish new period of hydroterrorism. Across the globe, from Yemen to Ukraine, this important useful resource is more and more getting used as a instrument of management. Based on the Pacific Institute, world water-related violence surged by greater than 50 p.c in 2023 alone. But worldwide establishments nonetheless deal with water as a growth or an environmental challenge—not because the nationwide safety flashpoint it has turn out to be.
Truthful-weather frameworks, such because the United Nations’ Water Conference and the Built-in Water Assets Administration method, gained’t survive the approaching storms, and as local weather shocks intensify, ignoring this menace is nothing in need of negligent. Local weather-driven water stress breeds desperation, particularly in locations the place corrupt or absent governments create a vacuum. And extremist teams step into this void, providing a distorted sense of order.
Water has lengthy been a instrument of warfare, however in recent times, the world has entered a darkish new period of hydroterrorism. Across the globe, from Yemen to Ukraine, this important useful resource is more and more getting used as a instrument of management. Based on the Pacific Institute, world water-related violence surged by greater than 50 p.c in 2023 alone. But worldwide establishments nonetheless deal with water as a growth or an environmental challenge—not because the nationwide safety flashpoint it has turn out to be.
Truthful-weather frameworks, such because the United Nations’ Water Conference and the Built-in Water Assets Administration method, gained’t survive the approaching storms, and as local weather shocks intensify, ignoring this menace is nothing in need of negligent. Local weather-driven water stress breeds desperation, particularly in locations the place corrupt or absent governments create a vacuum. And extremist teams step into this void, providing a distorted sense of order.
This drawback is especially pronounced within the Sahel, the place violent extremist teams with ties to the Islamic State and al Qaeda exploit water shortage for energy. In areas deserted by underfunded governments, these teams provide water and assets to determined communities, recruiting by means of a disturbing fusion of religion and survival.
In my homeland of Gambia, which is positioned within the Sahel, rising salinity from local weather change is creeping inland. Because of this, almost a 3rd of the nation’s rice fields may turn out to be unusable inside a decade. In neighboring Senegal, water demand is projected to surge by as much as 60 p.c by 2035, whereas rainfall has typically decreased.
Tensions are already rising quick. Greater than 1 / 4 of Gambia’s 2.6 million individuals lack entry to protected ingesting water. Seasonal water shortages drive inside migration and pressure cities equivalent to Banjul. Over the previous 5 years, there have been 450 clashes amongst farmers and herders within the central Sahel over dwindling water sources and grazing land. Gambia’s robust custom of spiritual tolerance has helped it resist the attract of extremism so far. However rising youth unemployment and local weather stress heighten the chance of radicalization.
Throughout the Sahel, that is turning into the norm. Current research have discovered that water conflicts in Africa have elevated over the previous 20 years and that water shortage is linked to violent battle within the Sahel. In the meantime, extremists are increasing into Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso, the place state authority is collapsing. Gambia is positioned simply west of those international locations, and with out pressing regional cooperation, it might be subsequent to fall sufferer to widespread insurgencies.
Previously, regional governments have tried to work collectively to stem this drawback. Through the Nineteen Seventies and Nineteen Eighties, excessive drought circumstances helped drive the formation of the Senegambia Confederation—a daring however short-lived political union to advertise integration between Gambia and Senegal, together with the joint administration of river basins and agriculture. The confederation in the end collapsed in 1989 as a result of political distrust and the international locations’ failure to combine their militaries and economies. But it acknowledged what policymakers should keep in mind right now: Water is aware of no borders.
And herein lies the issue. Regardless of almost two-thirds of worldwide freshwater flowing throughout nationwide borders, the world nonetheless lacks a contemporary world framework to control it. Most water-sharing agreements right now are bilateral, outdated, and straightforward to desert when relations bitter. Take the 1959 Nile Waters Settlement between Egypt and Sudan, which has fueled many years of regional friction as a result of it excluded upstream states equivalent to Ethiopia.
For this reason the world wants new worldwide transboundary water agreements with tooth. Organizations such because the African Union, the Financial Neighborhood of West African States, and the United Nations should take the lead and craft enforceable treaties that embody clauses for de-escalation, binding arbitration, and real-time information sharing to make sure base-level cooperation even throughout battle. Past this, treaties must also mandate the usage of applied sciences equivalent to satellite tv for pc monitoring and synthetic intelligence-powered forecasting to foretell and handle water shortages by means of early warning methods, which might permit for preemptive motion earlier than desperation descends into violence.
However no worldwide answer like this can succeed till policymakers sort out the foundation causes of hydroterrorism: climate-driven water shortages, state failure, and the erosion of public belief. To counter this, civil society organizations and the worldwide neighborhood should be part of forces to ship public providers and construct neighborhood resilience from inside. Meaning trying past conventional political and diplomatic methods to drive lasting change from the bottom up.
Throughout West Africa, civil society teams are already laying the groundwork to mobilize local weather motion. Organizations equivalent to Religion for Our Planet (FFOP) be sure that faith is usually a instrument for local weather motion. Based by Mohammed bin Abdul Karim Al-Issa, the pinnacle of the Muslim World League, FFOP trains non secular leaders to attach local weather science with religious teachings.
For instance, FFOP’s Youth Interfaith Leaders Fellowship, which I attended in 2023, empowers the following technology to confront points equivalent to water shortage in ways in which take cultural contexts under consideration. And in 2024, the Muslim World League helped put these teachings into apply. Citing the Islamic perception that the welfare of all individuals needs to be sought with out discrimination, it launched an bold undertaking to make sure entry to scrub water in Malawi.
Different grassroots initiatives have made significant inroads on battle decision. In Nigeria, as an example, organizations equivalent to Seek for Widespread Floor practice native mediators to resolve water-related disputes in Boko Haram-affected areas. In Mali, neighborhood dialogues have efficiently defused tensions over irrigation entry in drought-stricken areas.
The influence of those initiatives typically surpasses that of worldwide missions, largely as a result of they’re deeply embedded in native communities. And historical past exhibits that sustained grassroots strain works. For instance, it’s due to the advocacy of civil society teams equivalent to Cease Ecocide Worldwide that the Worldwide Felony Courtroom is on the verge of recognizing ecocide as a fifth core crime—a breakthrough that builds on latest positive aspects in local weather justice, as residents throughout Europe have began to carry their governments legally accountable for environmental failures.
This brings me to my closing level. The worldwide neighborhood should take the decisive step of clearly recognizing water weaponization as against the law beneath worldwide legislation. The manipulation of this useful resource to hurt civilians or coerce nations should carry actual penalties, together with sanctions, prosecutions, and reparations.
World wide, 1.8 billion individuals stay in areas of absolute water shortage, that means that they’ve entry to lower than 500 cubic meters of water per yr. Many of those people are one disaster away from falling into the grip of extremism. Weathering this actuality will possible take many years and the mixed efforts of numerous organizations and governments.
But when the worldwide neighborhood develops a contemporary framework to control transboundary water—with enforceable authorized requirements, climate-resilient infrastructure, and neighborhood inclusion at its core—then it might shift the tide. Solely then can individuals reclaim water as a important life supply, not a weapon of conflict.
