A Global Water Cry for Corporate Involvement

The perilous state of the world water crisis could be alleviated with exponential benefits being delivered to society in the process, if the corporate involvement were more vigorously integrated by governments.

The UNDP 2006 report states, “There is enough water for everyone and water insufficiencies is often due to mismanagement, corruption, lack of appropriate institutions, bureaucratic inertia, and a shortage of investment in both human capacity and physical infrastructure”.

These inadequacies are surely prevalent in countries facing global water crises especially Kenya, Ethiopia, Chad, India, Yemen, and Bangladesh. However the corporate world is richly endowed with high caliber management, excellent credit, cutting edge technologies, innovations, and political influence to change the water distribution landscape of the world.

Recently actor Brad Pitt, President Bill Clinton, and several Church ministries expended their resources in water starved countries and impacted on thousand of lives.

A crisis where 20% of the world’s population or 1.1 billion persons lack drinking water and adequate hygiene facilities has led to approximately 4500 deaths per day , needs the attention of the corporate world in a greater way than now obtains.

These entities can make social investments in affected countries by granting scholarships in engineering, medicine  and agronomy to native students; who on return can make significant contribution to the health, nutrition, and infrastructural advancement of these poverty stricken countries.

These same students can train others to build up a significant human resource base that many of these companies can later tap into and use to globally expand there business.

On short term basis they could finance the digging of wells in famine prone areas, supply trees, seeds, chlorine tablets, portable ionic exchange resins to filter impure river water, erect skill training centers, provide medical supplies and work with Doctors Without Borders to help improve the life expectancy rate of these people.

The benefit to society in the long term will be the development of a healthy workforce capable of increasing the productivity and foreign exchange earning capacity.

The more these countries then developed, the more they become attracted to foreign investors to conduct business, thereby giving returns on the social investments.

Reverse urbanization is also an area that corporate involvement can play a significant role to reduce the level of water consumption in cities. They can do this by strategically setting up hydro related business like forestry, sewage recycling plants among others in the rural areas.

The establishing of these companies in the rural areas will attract urban workers to relocate to take up the available jobs, thereby reducing the water consumption in the cities.

Sewage treatment plants will capture and recycle water that would normally be lost in the sea, and more investment in forest production produces more rainfall as the trees have to generate water as a byproduct of their food manufacturing process.

These projects then will significantly increase the water production capacity in these rural areas and when combined with the surplus from the reduced consumption in the cities, will result in adequate water supply to all.

The excellent management and innovative skills from these corporate entities will over time lead to high levels of sustainability in the supply of water to the nations.

In an environment where change is the only constant and success travels in seconds, the success in a few regions of the world will lead to replication in several areas.

This means that other corporate organization may also become involved, thereby leading to win/win situations for other water starved countries and all other parties in the equation.

Corporate involvement therefore in solving the global water crisis will be very good for society for many years to come.