Page - 11 - in Water, Energy, and Environment - A Primer

still would have left 600 million people without access to safe drinking water and 1.5 billion without access to basic sanitation. The safe drinking water goal was met in 2010, but the basic sanitation goal is yet to be achieved in more than 70countries. In 2011 the InterAction Council (IAC), a high-level group of former national leaders that has met annually since 1963, warned of an impending ‘water crisis’ and established a panel to addresswhat they saw as aworldwide leadership gap on the issue. In 2012 the panel released a report, ‘The Global Water Crisis:Addressing anUrgent Security Issue’ (10). In the foreward to the report, Gro Harlem Brundtland, the former Prime Minister of Norway and IAC Chair, underlined the danger in many regions where critical shortages already exist – sub-Saharan Africa, West Asia, and North Africa: ‘As some of these nations are already politically unstable, such crisesmay have regional repercussions that extendwell beyond their political boundaries. But even in politically stable regions, the status might very well be disturbed first and most dramatically by the loss of stability in hydrological patterns.’ IAC co-Chair Jean Chretien, former Canadian PrimeMinister, added, when the report was released, that ‘The future political impact of water scarcity may be devastating. Using water the waywehave in the pastwill not sustain humanity in the future. The IAC is calling on the United Nations Security Council to recognize water as one of the top security concerns facing the global community. Starting to manage water resources more effectively and efficiently now will enable humanity to better respond to today’s problems and to the surprises and troubles we can expect in awarmingworld.’ 1.7 GENDEREQUITY ISSUES Tocomplete thisoverviewofwater issues I turn to the important issue of gender equity. In the context of this chapter ‘gender’ is Waterand itsglobal context 11