Podcast: What happens when we take water for granted

TRANSCRIPT: What happens when we take water for granted

Gilbert Houngbo:

It's easy to think that, okay, water is free and I don't need to take care of it. As a global society, we have taken water for granted and that has to stop.

Ian Bremmer:

Hello And welcome to the GZERO World Podcast. This is where you'll find extended versions of my interviews on public television. I'm Ian Bremmer and on today's episode we are talking about something none of us can live without, that billions of people take for granted, water. Clean water for drinking, for cooking, for living our daily lives and it's at risk in many parts of the world, including right here in the United States. UNICEF reports that as many as 4 billion people, that's half the world's population, experience at least a month of severe water scarcity, each year. 2 billion live in areas where the water supply is inadequate all year long and water scarcity could drive as many as 700 million people to migrate by 2030. We're going to help you understand the growing crisis of water stress and what it means for all of us. And I'm talking to Gilbert Houngbo. He's the chairman of UN Water and former Prime Minister of Toga. Let's get to it.

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The GZERO World Podcast is brought to you by our founding sponsor, First Republic. First Republic, a private bank and wealth management company, places clients' needs first by providing responsive, relevant, and customized solutions. Visit firstrepublic.com to learn more.

GZERO World would also like to share a message from our friends at Foreign Policy. Something's often missing in the way we talk about the climate crisis and that's the issue of justice and equity. On season three of Heat of the Moment, a podcast from foreign policy in partnership with the Climate Investment Funds, host John D. Sutter explores the concept of a just transition away from fossil fuels and hopefully towards a net zero future. Listen to season three of Heat of the Moment: A Just Transition, wherever you get your podcasts.

Ian Bremmer:

Prime Minister Houngbo, thanks so much for joining us on GZERO World.

Gilbert Houngbo:

Thank you so much for having me in your show.

Ian Bremmer:

So we're a pretty global show but usually we are talking about the green bits on the globe. Today we're talking about the blue bits and they're a little larger, so I'm very pleased that we could finally get around to it.

Gilbert Houngbo:

I'm glad you put it right. The blue economy or the blue dimension of the global challenge is quite crucial and so I'm very glad that this opportunity is one that will allow us to bring the debate higher than it has been so far.

Ian Bremmer:

I thought I'd start with some good news, which of course is this effort that you've put so much time into that was called the Treaty on the High Seas that I've just seen announced, that apparently we're talking about what 30% of international waters will be protected for biodiversity. Given that we've never had an international agreement before, that sounds like some progress.

Gilbert Houngbo:

Clearly it is. Clearly it is a progress and we should expect more and more progress. I'm quite confident, I'm particularly linking the blue and the green because we can't really solve the climate change challenge without water because the climate change, water is an essential part of the whole discuss on the climate change. So it's going to be quite crucial.

Ian Bremmer:

Now I know that we've seen a lot of climate agreements in the past. They get announced and it takes a long time to implement and there's a lot of debate between point A and point B. This is not enshrined in law yet and as the first such agreement, it's not yet completely clear on what it means that we're talking about protection. So can you walk us through a little bit on what this treaty is meant to accomplish?

Gilbert Houngbo:

I mean, first of all, you have to understand that the problematic on water is so complex. And we have had some agreement back to the seventies where our economic commission from Europe is the central point for the UN system. But now, more and more what we trying to is to bring everybody, all countries to really adhere to the same way of addressing the same issue that we are facing while respecting the national circumstances that every government has to observe. And you have to look at that from different dimension and one important one is, water can be used for peace, at the same time water can be a security issue between and between countries.

So the transboundary nature of water and its implication is a huge consideration of the treaties. It goes without saying that, we need to keep in mind that a major challenge that we still have is the basic access to drinkable water and sanitation. Since 2015, we have made some progress. We have in the last eight years or seven, eight years, 600 million people that now have access to drinkable water services. At the same time, we need to keep in mind that we have 2 billion of people that still don't.

Ian Bremmer:

Now lack of access to clean water, to drinkable water, this is mostly an infrastructure issue at this point. How much of that is bad governance? How much of that is lack of resource? Where do you see the biggest challenges in the coming 5-10 years that you're trying to address?

Gilbert Houngbo:

I think we have a mixed of both. Bad management or bad long-term planning is quite a serious issue, I have to confess, particularly when you see sometime a difficult situation in developed countries, which you could really wonder what are the long-term planning, not only planning for water but also planning for climate change. Then the second part, the point you're mentioning, is also quite critical is what I call, particularly on the Global South, the competing demands on investment budgets. So which calls for we, in the multilateral not only the UN system but the IFIs, to increase the investment in the water infrastructure. As a global society, we have taken water for granted and that has to stop. Water has to become everyone's business and therefore the investment in water related infrastructure for us is a key. You see another point that is quite critical for us, if you look at our 17 SDGs-

Ian Bremmer:

Sustainable development goals.

Gilbert Houngbo:

Sustainable development goals, thank you. Barely each one of them, it's success depend on water one way or the other. So we found ourself in the same storm but not necessarily in the same boat. So it is going to be very important for us to use that water as a cross-cutting, let me put it this way, investment.

Ian Bremmer:

Talk about one, give me a country right now that's facing some of the greatest water stress, what's the impact on daily life as a consequence of that? Bring some color, some detail to an audience that is thinking about this in an abstract way right now?

Gilbert Houngbo:

I will say most of all countries in the Gulf for example, are really facing water stress.

Ian Bremmer:

We hear that Yemen is running out of water in very short order.

Gilbert Houngbo:

Yeah. That's a very good example. You take Chad, is another very good example and again, the combination of climate change and water challenges with the Lake Chad in almost every region, you have countries that are having watershed. What makes it even worse, is when you bring the agriculture dimension, we know that agriculture is more or less 75% the use of water. So addressing the issue of practices, talking again about management or governance, improving practices in agriculture and making the agriculture practices climate friendly, climate sensitive and use of technology will help us particularly in countries that are water stressed.

Ian Bremmer:

So when I look at Yemen, which has virtually no water access as a country itself, it is a pretty dense population. It's essentially living in desert. There is massive food shortage and starvation in the country because there's no agriculture, there's no access to ag because of water. You've got cholera outbreaks and other significant disease because you don't have proper sanitation and water. I mean if the water's not there, how are we going about addressing that? How much of this is potentially technology fix with desalinization? Is that too expensive to do its scale for now? How much of this is water needs to be brought in and is it brought in regionally? Is that available or this, does airlift have to happen? What does it mean to fix the water problem for a country like Yemen? How do you do that?

Gilbert Houngbo:

A country like Yemen, you really have to go with a multi-pronged approach on that. Let's face it, the first step is the crisis dimension. A country that already was suffering of all the ills that you described then now have, in the crisis context, just make it worse. Let's be clear on that. Then secondly, and I'm very happy by the way you presented, which for me is what I call the development conundrum. So we need to look, first of all, you can look at desalination because, at least Yemen, you have the sea or to desalinate it. I can talk later on Somaliland in Ethiopia where you don't even have the access to the sea. Not only you need to invest in agriculture, infrastructure is going to be key in Yemen. Investment, infrastructure and technology and you will have to consider desalination. But that is expensive.

This is where also official development cooperation comes to play. Sometime it's true, when you look at it's, okay, where do we start? But you just need to invest at the same time in a different dimension. What is also, I must say, is sometime very difficult. I gave the example of Somaliland in Ethiopia and with much more normal type of population that moving from one area to another depend on where they will have some pound. But the long-term survival perhaps to go through difficult decision by government in some internal resettlement. And you then have to face the internal resettlement with a practice that is in the culture, in the society. So sometime is you cannot solve all the problem by the law. So it makes it even more complicated. This is why you see, in my view, one of the reason why colleague from the humanitarian are present in almost a long term basis in some part of the world.

Ian Bremmer:

So how do you even measure success? One of the things that's been made a little easier in the cop climate change process is that we all know 1.5 degrees centigrade global warming. If we get past that, we've got serious problems. Everyone can watch that. Everyone can monitor it. What do we do, when it comes to global water, are there metrics like that that we can talk about that are easy to get people to understand?

Gilbert Houngbo:

Water, which is a consortium of the 34 or 35 different UN agencies that are in working one way or the other in water. We are already developing some of those metrics and one report will come out by summer times. So we do that in the context of the sustainable development goal 6, SDG 6 which is on water. So we do have metrics like the number of citizen that have access or not to drinkable water or to sanitation or the different type of component and the reuse of water and different type of metrics. What is happening, of course, is more difficult than the climate change, the 1.5 degree you gave because most of people sometimes you might think that the major problem are in the big cities, but most of the poor people that are really suffering from waters scarcity are in the rural area and therefore, I must confess that the data and the quality of data is challenging on that.

That being said, I believe there are also progress. So I will really invite colleagues, listen to us. Hopefully, we could share our report by June and July where we'll have some metrics particularly in terms of the accessibility to basic water related and services. And what is also the metrics is also important is how some of the nexus between water and climate change. For example, when you look at some of the big rivers, some of them are losing 10%, 20% each year or some years or of their reserve. And the ability to measure that and more and more using artificial intelligence is also going to help us.

Ian Bremmer:

And where do you see, I mean given AI breakthroughs have been extraordinary in being able to assess very accurately, monitor, sensor availability of resource and avoid waste, where do you think that's going to have the biggest impact in the water crisis in the next 5-10 years?

Gilbert Houngbo:

I think it's in agriculture.

Ian Bremmer:

In reducing the amount of water that is necessary for a given plot, for example?

Gilbert Houngbo:

Exactly. The amount of water that is necessary and the ability to reuse waste water and the more technology AI also will, particularly the costs of the technology will go down and to help increase the basic transformation of the agriculture production that will help reducing the global loss and waste and the loss and waste in agriculture is around 30, 35% of product. And that will also help us to reduce the amount of water needed.

Ian Bremmer:

Frankly, reduction in waste, growth of efficiency. I mean it's always the most exciting piece of a problem because you don't need new infrastructure for that, right? I mean you don't need new resource for that.

Gilbert Houngbo:

Exactly.

Ian Bremmer:

That's where, I mean literally, you can just change the nature of the game just by paying a little bit more attention and technology is making a difference there. I want to ask you another climate related question because of course, part of the reason why we've gotten ourself in this fix of climate change is that people have treated carbon emissions as free, as costless. It's not a part of the problem. Part of reason that we've gotten into a water challenge is because people in industry treat water as free. So do we need to think about water as a global commodity? And if we did, what would the price be?

Gilbert Houngbo:

I mean the price, if we didn't, the price would be what we are already feeling, an old one. But I remember my first year in University, that's where in the late seventies, early eighties, where we start saying that we have to start considering water as a good, as a public good, which is first thing. And I believe in a lot of situation including our current way of life summertime, I remember when I was in the UN in New York, I used to tell colleague that some of us need to spend some time in Arizona and to really feel how water is a common precious good. So that awareness raising is not enough and let's take it for granted and again from childhood and all the processes including in our daily life.

Secondly, it is also important on one hand, to make sure that while people have access to basic water services, we also take measure from a policy perspective, measure to avoid waste in the use of water because sometime, it's easy to think that, okay, water is free and I don't need to take care of it. The third dimension, which is link, is how do we fight against pollution? Back to your point, on the nexus with climate change against pollution in the rivers and not necessarily only the big rivers at the country level, at the community level, be it in large cities or small cities, we really need to really ensure that we minimize the risk of pollution of rivers.

Ian Bremmer:

Now how do you think about privatization processes? We've seen in many cases where municipal plants suddenly are being taken over by companies. Have that generally speaking in developing countries, how successful have those processes been? Is it driving more inequality? Is it creating efficiency and improving the water situation? I know there's not a one quick answer to that, but you see the entire range. Generally speaking, how's that been working?

Gilbert Houngbo:

I think well managed is something that I encourage, but well managed, because it depends, when you have in some countries, when the government in terms of governance is very well organized, then the water services can be led by the government, by the public sector. But at the same time, the policy if well in place and if it's privatized, privatized should not mean automatically that the price are going up. That's where I think the government had to set up the regulatory environment to ensure, for example, something that is very close to my heart that the population that at risk of being left behind that are vulnerable, they still have that minimum quantity of water a month that is free or at a very cheap cost. And then privatization also means that the government put in place means to control, to supervise and to inspect the quality of water and to ensure that the private company are there to the agreed way forward and the existing policy. So, I think well managed is not necessarily a bad thing.

Ian Bremmer:

Now you were talking about when you were in college in the late seventies, early eighties, which to be fair is a long time ago. So I'm going to ask you a question. Back when you were a student and you were saying, "We need to think about actually treating water as good", tell me a country, give me a story of a country that had been a disaster in water management then and today has gotten it right and the people actually don't suffer from water stress. Who's a good story over the course of your career?

Gilbert Houngbo:

I mean there is a lot but a country that comes to my mind is Rwanda for example, also South Africa, although the current situation has been difficult because of the drought in the recent years. But if you look at over the decades and they have gone from difficult management of water to really ensuring more and more services available to the citizen. The other thing that I also see, you have countries that have gone from water waste management and improve the situation and then the situation is also coming down again in terms of the quality of the services. Back to your point of governance, sometime I see countries, particularly in low income countries, where the authorities are taken by surprise by the population growth and therefore the ask or the demand of water services has gone up faster than the supply.

Ian Bremmer:

Yeah and this is of course primarily a sub-Saharan African issue on that front?

Gilbert Houngbo:

Yeah, indeed. In sub-Saharan Africa, Namibia is also good example in terms of improved manage water management, yeah.

Ian Bremmer:

I think about Rwanda and I mean we've had the president on this show and I mean this is a country also their population has exploded. It's not a super rich country though their growth has certainly been strong. Why is it, and it's not just on water. I mean we hear this in terms of their effort in getting plastic waste off the streets, for example. They've done a great job there. They've reduced corruption significantly. Why do you think they've gotten water, right? Why the top of your list?

Gilbert Houngbo:

I think it's global good governance. I think global good governance and the ability of the government to enforce the law and the policies. You are talking, for example, about getting rid of plastic is not only off the streets. When you are flying into Kigali or into Rwanda before you land, that you shouldn't have any plastic and they really are very strict on that, for example. So I believe it's a global good governance.

Ian Bremmer:

Now you mentioned, when I asked you about Yemen, you mentioned that the first thing we need to do is make sure that they're not overly stressed by a civil war that's going on and a proxy war that's happening in the region. I certainly agree with that. Of course, it's not only that conflict drives problems with water, problems with water can drive conflict. And we see this of course, in the Nile River basin. I'm particularly worried about this when we talk about the Indus and India and Pakistan and what the hell is going to happen when the Himalayan glaciers first flood and then are gone. That just feels like an utter geopolitical disaster that we're staring at a few decades away. Tell me that I'm wrong. Make me more optimistic about that.

Gilbert Houngbo:

I wish I could but I can't. I don't feel that you are wrong at all. I do share, to be very frank, I have the same concern. This is why it's so important that all the trans bonding challenges, we really, countries, take them much more seriously than other subject matters that can divide them. And you gave a very good example and we have so many of those situation around the world. So our position has been that the more the country try to deal in a preventive manner with the issue, the common issue, the better. But I have to also say that while I wish to give much better news on that, yes, we have noticed in the UN water, some recent new, what I call water cooperation agreement. But too little compared to how many cases we have, in terms of countries sharing the same source.

Ian Bremmer:

So when you look out in the next, let's say 10-20 years, do you think, I mean the way that we presently use water as consumers, are we going to be able to maintain most of that use looking forward? I mean, let's assume that we get address some of the issues of distribution and inequality, but when I look at climate change, it does make me wonder about to what extent your job is doable long term.

Gilbert Houngbo:

No, I'm positive on medium-long term that progressively our habits, our way of life, we will adjust. And when you think about it, we have been adjusting. I'm sure in the morning before you shave, you want to make sure that you don't let just the water running and 20 years ago or so, maybe we don't even think about that. The other thing with, I'm very confident also that with IoT, Internet of Things, it'll also help us have again, what we said about agriculture, knowing the quantity you need. In our household daily management, the IoT, I believe, is going to also be helpful for us to change our habit and also the consumption.

Ian Bremmer:

Yeah. Prime Minister Houngbo, thank you so much for the work you're doing and I appreciate you joining us today on GZERO World.

Gilbert Houngbo:

Thank you so much for having me on your show. Much appreciate it.

Ian Bremmer:

That's it for today's edition of the GZERO World Podcast. Do you like what you heard? Of course you did. Well, why don't you check us out at gzeromedia.com and take a moment to sign up for our newsletter. It's called GZERO Daily.

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The GZERO World Podcast is brought to you by our founding sponsor, First Republic. First Republic, a private bank and wealth management company, places clients' needs first by providing responsive, relevant, and customized solutions. Visit firstrepublic.com to learn more. GZERO World would also like to share a message from our friends at Foreign policy. Something's often missing in the way we talk about the climate crisis and that's the issue of justice and equity. On season three of Heat of the Moment, a podcast from Foreign Policy in partnership with the Climate Investment Funds, host John D. Sutter explores the concept of a just transition away from fossil fuels and hopefully towards a net zero future. Listen to season three of Heat of the Moment: A Just Transition, wherever you get your podcasts.

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