Valuing Water in the Global Commons Helps Ethiopia’s Resilience

Farming communities in the Tana Watershed, inland of Bahir Dar, Ethiopia’s northwestern city, face increased water scarcity. The reservoirs and wells they depend on to irrigate their crops run dry.

Climate change is exacerbating their water stress, altering rainfall patterns and causing them to be out of sync with centuries of farming tradition.

The article in World Resources Institute highlights that the water scarcity experienced by farmers, which is impacting their livelihoods, is not just a local issue. It is a global problem. Beyond the regional management of water that contributes to the area’s water scarcity, international policies and practices fuelling climate change are also affecting the local climate in Ethiopia’s Tana Watershed.

Local conditions in the Tana watershed, such as a growing population, an expanding economy, inadequate water governance and insufficient investment in infrastructure like wells and sewage systems, contribute to water scarcity. Additionally, outside influences beyond the control of Tana’s local farming communities are worsening the problem.

Water, a crucial part of the ‘Global Commons’, is threatened. The tragedy of overexploitation and rapid degradation is pushing our planet’s boundaries to the brink. To avert disaster, we must radically transform our key economic systems, such as food, urban, and energy systems, and transition to a circular economy. Incremental change is insufficient; we need a paradigm shift (Safeguarding the Global, 2024).

Climate change threatens the global commons, creating stronger storms, increased floods, and intensifying droughts, which also impact water security in many parts of the world. As experts and growing research point out, dramatic changes to landscapes caused by increased deforestation and widespread loss of wetlands and ecosystems caused by conversion to agricultural lands and cities are impacting climates from a local to a global scale. 

Virtual water, or the water used to produce goods and food, is another concept that can be used to alleviate water scarcity.  The idea is that water-scarce countries import foods and goods from water-rich regions to lessen their water stress, but the opposite is happening in reality. 

The WRI article notes that 39% of the time, goods and food come from water-stressed regions compared to those with more water, and rich countries import 50% of their goods from water-scarce countries.  This practice undermines the value of water as a foundation to achieve global sustainability goals and its essential role in interdependent global challenges.

That article points out that the global systems that affect and contribute to local water security stem from a “paradigm of extractive economic systems out of sync with vital planetary systems.”

Project Syndicate defines this as the current economic thinking that only considers the profits of pillaging the plant while ignoring the environmental damage it causes. This “bad accounting” bad accounting makes us look wealthier when we are becoming poorer, depleting the sources of our well-being at the cost of future generations.  The article says that safeguarding water resources and biodiversity must be prioritised alongside decarbonisation as we transition to an economy that operates within safe planetary boundaries.

In the Tana Watershed, farmers and communities are taking steps to address their local water challenges. They are trying to replenish groundwater and streams by reversing land degradation and restoring the common lands through tree planting. They have planted over 100,000 trees in the last two years and are doing other soil and water conservation efforts.

The way forward to ensure the safety of water in the global commons must be made clear. Currently, no single international treaty includes water in the global commons. As discussed in the article, achieving this goal requires fostering a new sense of shared responsibility for our water commons beyond the watershed and even beyond the water-specific context.

This involves integrating various aspects, such as food and energy systems, city planning, nature conservation, trade and financial systems, and the measurement and management of economic well-being. It also involves asking important questions, such as where we are not aligned and how we can shift from unsustainable and inequitable relationships to more sustainable and fair ones.