It is possible that no one reading this article has ever turned on a tap only to find it dry; or walked for several hours to fetch a bucket of water; or acquired a parasitic disease from an unsanitary local water system. \u00a0This blissful ignorance is an unsung privilege, and in stark contrast to the reality facing more than a billion global citizens.<\/p>\n
Water stress and its associated health hazards have long afflicted many drought-prone areas of the world, from equatorial Africa, to the Middle East<\/a>, or Latin America<\/a>. \u00a0The Somali Peninsula, for example, was last year in the grip of its longest drought for four decades, with resultant crop failures leaving tens of millions needing food aid.\n","protected":false},"featured_media":16541,"menu_order":0,"template":"","class_list":["post-16559","perspectives","type-perspectives","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n