Is water the next geopolitical battle?

This spring, the World Bank launched a new initiative to tackle a growing problem plaguing the world’s most fundamental resource: water. The program, dubbedWater Forward, is aiming to improve water access for 1 billion people over the next four years, as the resource comes under strain.

More than 70% of the earth’s surface is covered in good old H2O, so it would seem there’s plenty to go around. But the vast majority, at least 97%, is contained in the oceans as saltwater. The growing scarcity of freshwater for drinking, cooking, industrial, and agricultural uses is quickly moving water up as a global risk. In fact, our parent company, Eurasia Group, added it to its Top Risks list for 2026 as “The water weapon.”

As Nick Kraft, Eurasia Group’s Senior Analyst for Agriculture and Water, put it, “Chronic water stress is now the baseline reality we live in."

Scarcity is a growing problem

About half the world’s population experiences water stress at least part of the year, while demand continues to rise due to population growth, urbanization, and industrial use. At the same time, climate change is increasing both droughts and floods, widening the gap in water availability in many regions.

“We have over 2 billion people who don't have access to safely managed water. We have over 3 billion people who don't have access to adequate sanitation,” said Sarah Nedolast, Program Manager for Water at World Bank, during a GZERO Global Stage interview. “If we continue on the current path of how we're managing our agricultural water, we won't be able to feed the world by 2050.”

Earlier this year, the United Nations issued a report declaring an era of “water bankruptcy,” saying that as lakes and other freshwater sources decline, areas including Mexico City and towns around the Colorado River are in jeopardy, while Kabul, Afghanistan, could soon become the first city globally torun out of water.

While the issue presents critical developmental and humanitarian challenges, it is also causing broad economic concerns. As World Bank reports, water access supports 1.7 billion jobs globally, from farming to manufacturing and beyond. As water systems fail, productivity, energy security, and economic growth suffer along with them.

A loaded weapon

That same scarcity problem compounds when it becomes weaponized — something now taking shape in some of the world's most dangerous rivalries.

In Africa’s Sahel region, where temperatures are rising 1.5 times faster than the global average, dwindling water supplies have fueledhundreds of clashes between local farmers in the past few years. At the same time, armed groups linked to Al Qaeda and the Islamic State have learned to exploit shrinking supplies for leverage. They’ve demonstrated this by seizing wells, destroying infrastructure, and, as Nick Kraft put it, filling “state vacuums” by settling disputes that weak governments can’t and recruiting from communities that feel abandoned.

More recently, the war in the Middle East has shown how desalination plants, which convert seawater into drinkable water, are vulnerable to attacks. The majority of Gulf states rely on these plants to supply water to tens of millions of people. At least four have come under fire since the conflict began, including at least one in Bahrain that was targeted deliberately by Iran, giving Tehran new leverage to inflict pain on the region and gain leverage in the conflict.

Swimming toward solutions

At the same time, the world lacks significant global — or even regional — agreements on water use. While financing and infrastructure projects like World Bank’s initiative can improve national and local systems, they don’t solve a much more fluid geopolitical tension.

“Water is not static,” said Nick Kraft. “Unlike oil or minerals, it flows across borders. Roughly 60% of the world's freshwater is transboundary, and the incentive for every country along those boundaries is to maximize its own access.”

Kraft says even “gold standard” agreements on water use and sustainability, like the Indus Water Treaty of 1960 between India and Pakistan — brokered by the World Bank itself — have begun to collapse in our increasingly GZERO world. Meanwhile, countries are also showing a growing willingness to use water as a tool against their adversaries.

India, for example, has resisted restoring the Indus treaty after a terrorist attack in Kashmir last year, despite a ceasefire later brokered by the United States. More than 80% of Pakistani agriculture relies on water from the Indus basin, and India appears eager to preserve the suspended agreement as leverage.

In the absence of stronger multilateral cooperation, private-sector funding and “coalitions of the willing” are increasingly emerging as alternatives. But as water scarcity intensifies, the race to secure access may deepen geopolitical rivalries just as quickly as it accelerates efforts to quench them.

Look for more focus on this issue at upcoming global convenings, including the flagshipUN Water Conference in Abu Dhabi scheduled for December.

And to learn more about the World Bank’s new Water Forward Initiative, check outthis conversation with Sarah Nedolast from the recent Spring Meetings in Washington, D.C.