As African leaders gather in Cape Town for the African Water Investment Summit, there can be no equivocation: the world faces an unprecedented water crisis that demands a paradigm shift in how we value and govern our most precious resource.
The scale of the challenge is staggering. Over half the world’s food production now comes from areas experiencing declining freshwater supplies. Two-thirds of the global population faces water scarcity at least one month per year. More than 1,000 children under five die every day, on average, from water-related diseases. And if current trends continue, high-income countries could see their GDP shrink by 8% by 2050, while lower-income countries (many in Africa) face losses of 10-15%.
Yet this crisis also presents an extraordinary opportunity. As South Africa assumes the G20 presidency (for which I have been appointed special adviser to President Cyril Ramaphosa), it can champion a new economics of water that treats the hydrological cycle as a global common good, rather than as the source of a commodity to be hoarded or traded.
