Water is life – a commodity which is difficult for man to survive without.
The issue of water is number six of the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
There is a crisis brewing and most of the world’s leaders are putting this issue on the backburner.
With all the pollution that exists in our world today, in addition to the floods happening worldwide, millions living in the river basins, people carrying out building and infrastructural expansions across the board, we are looking at a water crisis in the eyes.
In the very near future, it is the countries who have water that will have power.
Water is mentioned in the Bible more than any other material/resources (Genesis 21: 14-15).
Further, the scriptures in 2 Kings 2: 19, shows us that a city can be in a good place but without water, the land will be unproductive.
Drought and famine would cause the people of God to come unto Him.
Instead, they should begin to put a team in place who are critical thinkers to identify springs, dormant wells, a good water table, and put plans in place for safeguarding and developing such areas, with a view to sustain the nation and exporting this invaluable resource.
There also needs to be a flat-rate meter system in place for the poor.

A borehole construction project has been launched in Manyang-Ngok county in Tonj, hoping to bring an end to conflicts arising from water access, thanks to the UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS), which has broken ground to drill two water points in the remote villages of Akot Madut and Atoong, located more than 40 kms from the Tonj area capital.
"Water is life.
I thank them, and I thank God for bringing UNMISS and water," he said, concluding his stream of gratitude.
"Now the distance walked in search of water is solved, but women dying during giving birth is not yet over," she noted.
The project will be implemented by the Community Initiative for Development Agency – CIDA, whose Executive Director, Gabriel Pap Nyok, asked community members to remain peaceful and support the drilling process.
"That commitment should not only be from UNMISS and CIDA but from you, too, [as the benefiting community].
UNMISS head of Kuajok field office Anastasie Nyirigira said that while serving to diminish water-related conflicts, the project would also ensure that all internally displaced persons in the area have a chance to access clean drinking water.
Tonj Governor Mathew Mathiang Magoordit thanked UNMISS and CIDA for their partnership and assistance to the community of Manyang-Ngok county.
"I am happy and grateful to UNMISS," he said, noting, "You have helped the community by providing water and my state administration will fully cooperate with you.
(With Inputs from APO)

(MissionNewswire) Through a “Clean Water Initiative,” Salesian Missions has provided the funding for the construction of 10 water boreholes in communities in Nigeria.
As part of the second phase of the project, the construction of boreholes has begun at Salesian centers in the towns of Koko, Abuja and three others in the Benue State.
The new water supply will help ensure that poor youth, their families and Salesian missionaries living and working in the area have access to safe, clean water for drinking and cooking and for personal hygiene.
This project also ensures access to water for Salesian youth centers that are providing services for street children.
This reduces the number of waterborne illnesses that can affect those in our schools, keeping them away from important study time.” UN-Water estimates that worldwide 2.1 billion people lack access to safely managed drinking water services and by 2050, the world’s population will have grown by an estimated 2 billion people pushing global water demand up to 30 percent higher than today.
Women and children often bear the primary responsibility for water collection in the majority of households and globally, spend 140 million hours a day collecting water.
According to UNICEF, Nigeria is Africa’s most populous country and the ninth most populous country in the world.
By UN estimates, Nigeria will be one of the countries responsible for most of the world’s total population increase by 2050.
While Nigeria has the second strongest economy in Africa, it also has extreme rates of poverty with 100 million people living on less than $1 a day.
Poverty still remains one of the most critical challenges facing the country and population growth rates have meant a steady increase in the number of people living in conditions of poverty.

A borehole construction project has been launched in Manyang-Ngok county in Tonj, hoping to bring an end to conflicts arising from water access, thanks to the UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS), which has broken ground to drill two water points in the remote villages of Akot Madut and Atoong, located more than 40kms from the Tonj area capital.
“Water is life.
I thank them, and I thank God for bringing UNMISS and water,” he said, concluding his stream of gratitude.
Another resident, Ajak Akot, thanked UNMISS for providing water, but took the opportunity to raise other matters of concern, especially those affecting women.
“Now the distance walked in search of water is solved, but women dying during giving birth is not yet over,” she noted.
The project will be implemented by the Community Initiative for Development Agency – CIDA, whose Executive Director, Gabriel Pap Nyok, asked community members to remain peaceful and support the drilling process.
“That commitment should not only be from UNMISS and CIDA, but from you, too, [as the benefitting community].
UNMISS head of Kuajok field office Anastasie Nyirigira said that while serving to diminish water-related conflicts, the project would also ensure that all internally displaced persons in the area have a chance to access clean drinking water.
Tonj Governor Mathew Mathiang Magoordit thanked UNMISS and CIDA for their partnership and assistance to the community of Manyang-Ngok county.
He vowed to cooperate with UNMISS during his tenure as governor.

By Mpho Tebele Gaborone- The United Nations has warned of a looming crisis as delayed rains and below-average precipitation since October have reduced cereal production prospects and lowered pasture yields in Southern Africa.
This is contained in the latest report of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) detailing the impact of reduced rains, which is expected to have caused a contraction in the area planted and lowered yield prospects in most parts of the region.
The report states that “Since the start of the 2018/19 cropping season in October, anomalous dry conditions have developed across parts of Southern Africa, with more intense moisture deficits registered in Botswana, Namibia and South Africa, in addition to the western parts of Madagascar.” In Botswana, the report says, rainfall in October and November was about 60-65% below average.
The report says rangeland provides the bulk of feed requirements and the use of supplementary feed is not a common practice among the majority of households in the traditional farming sector.
Some of the lowest cumulative rainfall was registered in central and southern parts of Otjozondjupa Region, the bulk of Omaheke Region, eastern parts of Hardap and //Kharas regions, several pockets in Erongo, Kunene, Khomas (eastern parts) and the north-eastern regions (including the regions of Omusati, Oshana and Oshikoto), where a significant proportion of communal farming households are located.
In the large cereal‑producing provinces of Free State and North West, reduced rains delayed plantings and are expected to have curbed the area sown; cumulative rainfall at the provincial level has been 40‑50% below average since October.
As a result, the area sown to cereal crops is estimated to have contracted for the 2018/19 cropping season to an average or below‑average level in these countries.
Overall, the 2019 cereal production outlook in most parts of Southern Africa has diminished since the start of the season and average to below-average harvests are foreseen,” the report says.
“It further warns that livestock production is also expected to be curtailed by the dry weather conditions.
Reports indicate that South Africa’s agricultural industry body AgriSA will approach banks, agribusiness and government to raise R3 billion (US$220 million) to help farmers hit by severe drought.

Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis are developing a water filter that could help people in countries where there is not enough clean drinking water.
That’s put pressure on scientists to develop water-purifying technologies to help increase global access to drinking water.
They combined the fibers with graphene oxide, an extremely thin material that can convert sunlight into heat, which then kills the bacteria on the surface of the filter’s membrane.
Because the technology just requires sunlight to work, that could help rural communities without reliable access to electricity, said Young-Shin Jun, an environmental engineering professor at Wash U.
“Where we don’t have electricity, we’ll still be able to utilize this membrane to kill bacteria that we worry about,” Jun said.
The filter Singamaneni and Jun developed still has years to go before hitting the market, so it’s too early to estimate its cost.
The cost of water filtering membranes remains the biggest challenge to delivering them to water-stressed communities, said Eric Hoek, a civil engineering professor at University of California-Los Angeles.
“In order to assure that the whole world has clean, safe drinking water, we do not need a better membrane,” Hoek said.
“The most impactful contribution would be to make a membrane that performs the function of a commercially available membrane but cost 10 times less.” It’s possible that the Wash U researchers’ bacteria-based filter could be less costly compared to others on the market.
Because it uses sunlight to kill microbes that accumulate on the membrane, it “can reduce the membrane maintenance cost,” Jun said.

Water scarcity is a top risk to global food production.
1) Competition – and one group wins First, physical water scarcity can occur when there is simply not enough water to meet all demands – when use outpaces replenishment.
For example, when an upstream irrigation scheme consumes too much water, downstream farmers are left to do without.
2) Not everyone has access to the technologies Sometimes technologies to fight water scarcity exist, but the people who need them most are left out by inequitable or otherwise flawed institutions.
Rather, addressing this scarcity also requires overcoming issues of access, equity and siloed thinking.
The right business models can support smallholder farmers to address water scarcity.
For example, investments in developing businesses through training, stronger supply chains and credit access could encourage more entrepreneurs to invest in new technologies such as solar irrigation pumps.
Another option is to invest in increased water storage, such as on-farm ponds.
Policy change in combination with investments in innovative business models is a promising option for alleviating water scarcity.
Only with this winning combination can we protect small farms from water scarcity and take the essential steps toward food security.

Water The Zambian government sets aside increasingly larger amounts of money for water access and sanitation each year, but less than half of that money winds up being spent in that sector.
“I can’t afford to get all my water from the tap,” Mwale says.
“It’s expensive.” The Zambian government has allocated huge sums of money to improve sanitation and access to water across the country, but many say they still struggle to get what they need.
In 2015, just 31 percent of Zambia’s 15.4 million people had basic sanitation services, according to UNICEF, the United Nations’ child-advocacy agency, and the most recent population statistics available.
The 2019 budget includes 1.98 billion kwacha ($165.8 million) for water supply and sanitation.
Yet, in a trend going back nearly a decade, less than half of that money is spent each year on those services, says Pamela Chisanga, the WaterAid country director in Zambia.
“We can avoid calamities such as cholera if people have access to clean and safe water.” Dennis Wanchinga, the minister of Water Development, Sanitation and Environmental Protection, doesn’t dispute that much of the money allocated for water supply and sanitation is spent elsewhere, but he notes that it’s not being wasted.
Mary Phiri, another Zambian who faces daily water problems, knows how dangerous the consequences of water scarcity can be.
“Sometimes children would drink water from the well meant for washing dishes, because to them, water is water, whether from the well or from the tap,” Phiri says.
Editor’s note: Mary Phiri and Prudence Phiri, GPJ, are not related.

The federal government says it will look into what it would take to improve the water and sewer system in Garden Hill First Nation in Northern Manitoba — a fly-in reserve where many residents refuse to drink their tap water for fear it’s unsafe.
Michel Burrowes, a deputy director with Indigenous Services Canada, said the federal agency decided to move ahead with a feasibility study "in part" because of concerns raised by a recent CBC investigation that revealed Garden Hill residents struggle to access clean water.
Options could include building a new water treatment plant and an expanded water main, allowing more homes can get their water piped directly from the plant, he said.
Government officials plan to meet with Garden Hill’s chief and council on Feb. 14 to discuss the study.
Burrowes also said it’s unlikely that any of the homes lacking running water and indoor plumbing will be part of the review; those homes were left out of an earlier retrofit program that installed running water in the community because they were unfit to live in.
A previous study completed in 2012 found that Garden Hill’s water treatment plant is expected to remain serviceable until 2032, Burrowes said.
Funding for a new plant was reviewed, but since Garden Hill isn’t under a boil-water advisory, it wasn’t considered a priority.
"The service standard is to provide potable water to all the houses — and part of that service standard says that you can do it by truck," he said.
Two years later, the federal government launched a $40-million program to retrofit 769 homes in the region — including 216 in Garden Hill — with cistern and indoor plumbing.
But a CBC investigation found that not all the water tanks are regularly cleaned.

s"Land subsidence is a destructive phenomenon," said Siavash Arabi, a measurement expert at Iran’s cartography department.
All those people have put incredible pressure on water resources on a semi-arid plateau in a country that saw only 171 millimeters (6.7 inches) of rain last year.
Over-reliance on ground aquifers has seen increasingly salty water pumped from below ground.
"Gradually, the pressure from above causes the soil particles to stick together and this leads to sinking of the ground and formation of cracks."
German scientists estimate that land under the airport is sinking by 5 centimeters (1.9 inches) a year.
"Rates (for subsidence) are very high and in many instances it’s happening in densely populated areas," said Shafiee.
Already, the drought and water crisis has fed into the sporadic unrest Iran has faced over the last year.
Iranian officials shrugged off the offer.
But solutions to the water crisis will be difficult to find.
Iranian authorities have begun to crack down on illegal water wells.