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Access to water

News, comment and features on access to water in the developing world

August 2024

  • people wait in a line with empty canisters

    Global surge of water-related violence led by Israeli attacks on Palestinian supplies – report

  • Boys, one pushing a wheelbarrow, carry big plastic containers to collect water, Vanuatu.

    The rising ocean
    ‘The wells are salty’: how the invading ocean is contaminating Vanuatu’s water

  • Portrait of a man wearing green doctors scrubs

    ‘I lost my son to sepsis’: the fightback against the spread of superbugs

  • Large industrial buildings and car parks on a green plain

    Southern frontlines: Latin America and the Caribbean
    Anger mounts over environmental cost of Google datacentre in Uruguay

July 2024

  • Future of Three tractors with Egyptian flags ploughing lush green fields. project, Egypt's 'Future Project for Agricultural Production' comprises more than a million feddans, which represents around 50 percent of the New Delta project.

    Greening the desert: is Sisi’s grand plan using up all of Egypt’s water?

  • Roman Krznaric

    How will we solve the world’s water wars? An ancient Spanish court offers one answer

    Roman Krznaric

June 2024

  • A slim, middle-aged Latina woman with pulled-back brown hair and a color long-sleeved top in purple, blue, pink, and red, stands at a lectern that has her name on it, smiling.

    Mexico’s new president ran on climate goals. Will she follow through?

    Claudia Sheinbaum, a former climate scientist and Mexico City mayor, has often led with politics over the environment

May 2024

  • Sayed Ahmed with his arm around his wife Amena Khatun by the Rupsha River in Khulna, Bangladesh

    A common condition
    ‘It’s in our rivers and in our cups. There’s no escape’: the deadly spread of salt water in Bangladesh

    Kidney disease is on the rise in coastal communities, where some have no choice but to drink and cook with contaminated water
  • Gilbert Kabore a worker and caddie of the Golf Club Ouagadougou

    The alternatives
    ‘Our green is brown’: the eco-friendly Sahel golf club avoiding the water hazard

    Course in Burkina Faso uses just 200 to 300 litres a day, while US peers suck up millions
  • A pregnant woman stands in front of two graves: one is painted black and white with a hand-lettered inscription, a wreath and a rickety wooden awning; next to it is a small square brown concrete block, To the right can be seen a small black and white painted concrete grave topped with a cross.

    Southern frontlines: Latin America and the Caribbean
    Colombia’s Wayúu people live on land rich in resources. So why are their children dying of hunger?

    State failures in La Guajira have compounded water shortages that bring malnutrition and death

April 2024

  • Parched, cracked earth with dried-out irrigation tubes under sunny, blue sky.

    US lawmakers Elizabeth Warren and Ro Khanna seek to ban trade in water rights

    Bill would stop private investors, including hedge funds, farmers and municipalities, from profiting off water scarcity
  • Stock photo of blurry figures seen beyond cell.

    Nearly half of US prisons draw water likely contaminated with toxic PFAS – report

    Around 1m people, including 13,000 youths, especially vulnerable because they can do little to protect themselves, co-author says
  • A woman in a pink and orange sari uses a bucket to collect water from a pond

    A common condition
    ‘Headaches, organ damage and even death’: how salty water is putting Bangladesh’s pregnant women at risk

    As rising sea levels and extreme weather contaminate drinking water sources, doctors are seeing alarming numbers of women with serious health problems including pre-eclampsia

March 2024

  • A tank drives along a dirt road past yellow flowers

    The age of extinction
    ‘Ecocide in Gaza’: does scale of environmental destruction amount to a war crime?

    Exclusive: Satellite analysis revealed to the Guardian shows farms devastated and nearly half of the territory’s trees razed. Alongside mounting air and water pollution, experts says Israel’s onslaught on Gaza’s ecosystems has made the area unlivable
  • A girl refills a water bottle in Gaza

    Women and girls suffer first when droughts hit poor and rural areas, says UN

    World water development report warns that access is major source of conflict between countries

    • Southern frontlines: Latin America and the Caribbean
      ‘Water is worth more than gold’: eco-activist Esteban Polanco on why violence won’t stop him

    • Southern frontlines: Latin America and the Caribbean
      ‘There aren’t seasons any more’: a childhood without water in north Colombia

    • The age of extinction
      ‘On a razor’s edge’: migratory birds rely on this salt lake – but it’s dying

February 2024

  • Palestinian refugee Idris Abu Saleh in his rooftop greenhouse in Jerash camp in Jordan.

    The pharmacist who sells onions: Palestinians go hydroponic in Jordan’s ‘Gaza camp’

    In crowded Jerash refugee camp, hydroponic horticulture allows residents to grow their own crops efficiently in an arid country – and provides a stateless people with an income

January 2024

  • Two children jump into a small natural pool as others play in the water

    Southern frontlines: Latin America and the Caribbean
    ‘We cannot be cowards’: the Brazilian village fighting for the right to have water

    Latin America’s water wars: In a struggle that has already cost one life, a community founded by those who fled slavery is fighting to save its access to water and way of life against encroaching farmers
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