Understanding the Global Water Crisis
SSC members Ken Conca, Patricia Kameri-Mbote, and Lyla Mehta held a roundtable disucsssion at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars to discuss the escalating water crisis experienced around the world and the threat of growing water scarcity.
Water is an emerging issue for human security, however, conventional portrayals of water scarcity mask how access to and control over water is highly unequal and a result of socio-political processes. Dr. Ken Conca examined how social and economic globalization are yielding informal but increasingly embedded sets of global rules and shaping the governance of water systems around the world. Dr. Patricia Kameri-Mbote addressed the conflict and cooperation dynamics at play in the Horn of Africa and Great Lakes Region. Dr. Lyla Mehta discussed how water scarcity relates to competing forms of governance that shape people’s rights and access to natural resources. This meeting was webcast live and will be archived at www.wilsoncenter.org.
Drs. Ken Conca, Lyla Mehta, and Patricia Kameri-Mbote speaking at the roundtable discussion on 24 May 2006. Photo: David Owen Hawxhurst.