“Water, water everywhere but not a drop to drink,” so goes one of the lines in that wonderful poem The Ancient Mariner. While this is a description of a predicament in a different context it nevertheless depicts the plight of millions, particularly in the developing world as regards to access to potable water supply.

Water is a necessity for the sustainability of life and there is no substitute for it and therefore many die or suffer dreadful diseases because of not being able to access safe and clean water. This is so unfortunate and sad especially when we consider that 70% of the Earth’s surface is covered with water albeit a large portion is saline.

It is even more distressing and depressing to note that in this so-called modern world where men have gone to the moon, hundreds of billions are spent on producing the most sophisticated nuclear and other weapons on a mass scale and countless spectacular scientific and technological advances have been made. Almost 50% of the developing world’s population – 2.5 billion people – lack improved sanitation facilities, and over 884 million people still use unsafe drinking water sources, according to the United Nations Children Fund, (UNICEF). Inadequate access to safe water and sanitation services, coupled with poor hygiene practices, kills and sickens thousands of children every day, and leads to impoverishment and diminished opportunities for thousands more.

It adds that poor sanitation, water and hygiene have many other serious repercussions. Children – and particularly girls – are denied their right to education because their schools lack private and decent sanitation facilities. Women are forced to spend large parts of their day fetching water. Poor farmers and wage earners are less productive due to illness, health systems are overwhelmed, and national economies suffer. Without WASH (water, sanitation and hygiene), sustainable development is impossible.

This is surely an indictment on mankind especially for those wealthy countries which waste billions on stockpiling weapons and waging selfish and senseless wars across the globe. One of those wealthy nations spends nearly US$600 billion annually on the military which is more than what all other countries spend put together.

Don’t we ever consider that if a fraction of that amount is spent on human development no one in this world would suffer from a lack of access to safe and clean water, and poverty could be erased from the earth. But no, our individual ego, ideology, cultural values and political system must dominate and engulf the entire world, even if this would result in the destruction of mankind. But we are the biggest crusaders and champions of human rights and democracy. What human right is more fundamental than the right to live? And this is dependent on the ability to access food and water, but millions are deprived in poor countries because those in control of political power is the wealthy ones who do not want to change the status quo of profits before people.

And so water is becoming an increasingly precious commodity as demand grows without proportionate growth in supply. Consequently, desalination plants are on the upsurge worldwide to provide for the shortage of fresh water. We are yet to know if this would have any serious adverse geological and environmental effects.

The 2008-2009 Desalination Yearbook – which is based on data collected by GWI’s Desal Data unit in association with the IDA – also reports that the number of contracted desalination plants worldwide totaled 13,869 as of June 30, 2008, up from 13,080 the prior year. (A comprehensive Global Desalination Market Snapshot is available on IDA’s online press room at www.idadesal.org.)

“Water is becoming an increasingly precious commodity in many parts of the world. The newly released statistics indicate that desalination is playing an increasingly important role in addressing the global thirst for new water resources. In fact, for many communities, desalination provides the only reliable source of potable water,” said Patricia Burke, IDA’s Secretary General.

Burke cited statistics from the World Health Organisation, which estimates that approximately 20 percent of the world’s population live in countries where water is scarce or where people have not been able to access the resources available.

The Desalination Yearbook also shows that plants are now being built on a new massive scale. Currently, the largest single desalination plant in operation is the 456,000 m3/d plant serving Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates. However, there are five other plants with capacities in excess of 500,000 m3/d now under construction in the Middle East region. The largest of these is the 880,000 m3/d Shoaiba 3 unit in Saudi Arabia. Later this year, the first 1,000,000 m3/d plant is expected to be commissioned in Saudi Arabia.

While not approaching this magnitude, large-scale desalination facilities are also being planned in the United States. For example, the recently approved Carlsbad, California desalination facility will be the largest desalination plant in the Western Hemisphere, providing 50 million gallons (189.3 m3/day) of high quality drinking water per day.

Christopher Gasson, publisher of GWI, commented, “If you have a fast growing population and limited natural water resources, sooner or later you are going to have to turn to the sea, and with climate change, it seems that ‘sooner’ means ‘now’.

And so our youthful Minister of Housing and Water, Irfaan Ali was spot on when at the recent Global Water Partnership meeting he asked:

“If it is that we are truly going through a crisis, then why are we not seeing the same levels of attention that is given to the financial and food crisis attached to the water crisis?”

Guyana is known to be a country richly blessed with tremendous natural resources and water, but it is also known to have numerous challenges in the delivery of potable water as a result of the geographic outlay of the country.

And many other countries are in the same plight that is why the rich nations have to stop paying lip service to development aid and focus more resources which have a direct impact on human development such as ensuring acute global problem of access to potable water is solved.