Shoring up peace: Water and post-conflict peacebuilding

Water is essential to human health, poverty alleviation, sustainable livelihoods, and food security. Yet 780 million people worldwide still lack access to safe drinking water, and 2.5 billion live without access to basic sanitation (UNICEF and WHO 2012). Of the approximately 2 million people who die each year from waterborne and water-washed illnesses, the majority are children under five (Water Aid 2011). In 2012, addressing the United Nations General Assembly on the culture of peace, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon observed that “[p]eople intuitively understand that there can be no military solution to conflicts. . . that the world’s scarce resources should be spent to help people fiourish, not to fund weapons that cause more suffering.. . . $1.7 trillion dollars was spent last year on weapons. That is an enormous cost to people who go to bed hungry. . . children who die because they lack clean water. . . " (UN 2012).

Duke Scholars

Author Erika S. Weinthal Environmental Sciences and Policy