Inspiring initiatives for water security

For this, we need to mobilise and empower the decision-makers of tomorrow—the students of today.

The 1990s marked a significant decade in the development field, focusing on how the tangible consequences of development could reach local communities. Environmental deterioration, particularly the degradation of water sources, had already rendered economic growth sluggish. Concerns were raised that if the deterioration continued, it would hurt the poor the most. Critical reviews and evaluations of the projects and approaches to socioeconomic development, poverty reduction and environmental protection of the 1980s, as well as the then emerging apprehension regarding global environment change, led to several key global initiatives. These included the Earth Summit of 1992, the declaration of the International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction and later the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which even set time-bound targets to reduce income poverty and hunger, while promoting gender equality and environmental sustainability, all of which, relate to the issue of water.