by Shaheen Darr

Created on: January 25, 2009   Last Updated: November 07, 2009

As we become aware of the true scale of the water crises facing our planet's future, the importance of significant action becomes imperative especially as far as the poorer countries of the world are concerned. Urgent action has be taken by governments, corporations, the United Nations, the EU and other non governmental corporations as the scale of the problem makes it an impossible task to be undertaken by individuals alone. To rely on people living in the poorest areas of the world to find a remedy is asking for the impossible considering the difficult circumstances already faced by these people.

This can be illustrated by Zimbabwe's current situation where statistics reveal that more than 20000 people have lost their lives to cholera and there is increased risk of the disease spreading beyond its borders if adequate action is not taken. In such cases ordinary people cannot do more than boiling their drinking water and cooking the food that they eat to control the spread of the disease. They have been let down by the poor drainage and sewage systems with corrupt politicians giving priority to their own power struggles over provision of basic needs of the common man. The situation becomes even more difficult when the forces of nature aggravate existing conditions as the heavy rains in Zimbabwe have shown.

Organisations have to accept their involvement in the water crisis and stop their greed before things can move forward. As Wangari Maathai, the Kenyan Nobel Prize winner states, "they plunder and pollute" water sources and "steal the money that is meant to get water to the poor." When corrupt organisations and governments recognise the consequences of their actions and make anti corruption policies on par with development then it could be a step forward for individuals to start taking some of the reigns of their lives into their own hands.

Change will start occurring in rural areas of countries like Africa, India and South America when the means to bring it about will be put into place by large organisations irrespective of being profit making or not. There also has to be education for the masses to teach them the result of their actions and how necessary it is for them and their families to drink clean water. To allow your child to drink water from a river which has sewage pouring into it is giving him the passport to illness or death.

This is not an impossible scenario as the outstanding achievement of Andrew Seidu, the director of the Guinea Worm Eradication

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