The Stream, August 21: China Reluctant to Engage in India’s Water Management Plans

In the fifth round of India-China Strategic Dialogue, India pressed for an inter-governmental body to deal with water issues between the two nations, only to be met with a “less than enthusiastic” response from China, The Economic Times reported. Concerned over its neighbor’s ongoing dam production, India hopes for greater cooperation in the use of trans-border river waters, as well as a water commission to expand information sharing beyond the currently exchanged hydrological data.

MENA
The Middle East North Africa (MENA) region contains 12 of the 15 most water-scarce nations in the world, making it vulnerable to the destabilizing effects of an ever-decreasing supply, The Atlantic reported. In Egypt, experts predict that water will run out by 2025 due to a combination of climate change, water mismanagement, and regional geopolitics.

Solutions
The $US 535 billion required in investments to provide universal access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation, as estimated by the World Health Organization (WHO), cannot come from philanthropic organizations alone, David Bornstein writes in his blog for The New York Times. Instead, nonprofits should act as catalysts for awareness and action to be later carried on by businesses and governments.

“The impact of water and water stewardship is something [the United Kingdom has] seen change dramatically over the past 25 years,” said Peter Start, director at real estate consultants Savills, in a sponsored feature from The Guardian. Water stress, scarcity, and flood have forced new demographics to work together to compensate for an absence of state funding.