World Environment Day

Water is life. It nourishes our ecosystems, powers our industry, grows our food, and makes life itself possible. Yet the image of our “Blue Planet” is deceptive. We are rapidly losing our water ecosystems—our planet’s life support systems— as several linked crises of global proportions worsen. This trend poses new threats to domestic and international security.

People are already feeling the consequences of water resource mismanagement. When water ecosystems are being damaged by overfishing and pollution, the food security and health of people in many regions is threatened. In the developing world, in communities that lack access to water resources, girls are often deprived of their education because they spend so much time fetching water from far-away sources. The causes of the water crisis urgently need to be addressed. New predictions of increased droughts and floods underscore the need for water resources management to rise to the top of the sustainable development agenda.

At the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) in August 2002, the global community set targets and adopted action programs that recognize the important role of healthy freshwater and marine ecosystems in poverty reduction and sustainable development. The Global Environment Facility (GEF) plays a key role in efforts to meet these critical targets. The GEF has been a catalyst for on-the-ground solutions to the world’s land and water resource problems for more than a decade. Since its inception in 1991, GEF has invested $974 million in water-related projects in 139 countries. In light of the serious threats to water ecosystems, the GEF is prepared to contribute another $400 million over the next four years to address critical global water issues.

GEF investments fund projects and facilitate partnerships that benefit both the global environment and local communities. In the Danube River/Black Sea Basin, for example, GEF funds have supported a long-term, 17-country effort to restore the highly polluted waters to a level of cleanliness not known since the 1960s. Some of the program’s early successes include the identification of 500 nutrient pollution “hotspots” and development of plans to install clean technology. In addition, a GEF pilot project, part of the larger Danube River/Black Sea Initiative, targeted two islands that had been harmed by polluted sediment from the Danube. Within a few years, these islands began to show signs of recovery. Sixty percent of the islands was covered once again by reeds and aquatic vegetation.

In Kenya, GEF helped to launch a project that addresses the root causes of poverty in the Lake Baringo region: biodiversity loss and land and water degradation. As soil erodes and flows into Lake Baringo, the character of the lake is changing and fish stock is plummeting. Project staff worked with local farmers to help reduce soil erosion. Their techniques worked, and for the first time in seven years, there was a crop. The other farmers who came to help with the crop copied the technique, setting into motion a cycle of renewal. Thanks to the reduced soil erosion, the old abundance of wildlife, food, and productive land and clean water is beginning to show signs of returning.

These are just a couple of the GEF projects, one large and one small, that demonstrate that it is possible to maintain the delicate balance between human needs and environmental imperatives. Of course, the GEF cannot by itself resolve the many problems facing our water ecosystems. The challenge is enormously complex. The international community’s efforts to protect water resources need to be scaled up and accelerated in order to reverse current trends. Partnerships between countries, international institutions, the private sector, and local communities are the most effective way of maximizing our collective impact. In that spirit, GEF is working to forge new partnerships while nurturing existing partnerships and replicating successful projects. After all, our fates are intertwined. And in this interdependent world, we are all winners or we are all losers, together.