People write and sing and dance and dream about it. People fight over it. And all people, everywhere and every day, need it. We need it for drinking, for cooking, for washing, for food, for industry, for energy, for transport, for rituals, for fun, for life. But we stand today on the brink of a global water crisis.
More people lack drinking water today than they did two decades ago.
More and more freshwater sources are being used-up and contaminated. Most of the solutions to the crisis must be developed and implemented locally, and always with the view that water is not to be taken for granted, or unjustly appropriated by particular groups for particular needs. Let us acknowledge that clean water is a universal human right, and in so doing accept that we have the corresponding universal responsibility to ensure that the forecast of a world where, in 25 years' time, two out of every three persons face water-stress is proven wrong. In this issue, United Nations' Secretary General Kofi Annan asks us to face up to the threat of a catastrophic water crisis and counter such bleak forecasts by adopting a new spirit of stewardship. To do otherwise would be nothing less than a crime and history will rightly judge current generations harshly for it.