On average, a tanker fills up six times a day, Sagar said, siphoning as much as 41% of the city's daily water supply, an amount that generates $43 million annually for tanker owners, according to Orangi.

The World Bank considers Yemen "one of the most water-scarce countries in the world" where only 125 cubic meters of water are available yearly per capita compared to the world average of 2,500 cubic meters. Just 46 percent of Yemen's rural population has direct access to an adequate water supply and the number is only slighter better in cities, according to the German Development Service (GDS), which is working with the Yemeni government to improve water management.

"The water is no longer fit for human consumption, with analysis and international studies showing that just 10 percent of water in the Gaza Strip is usable... threatening the lives of Palestinians," Munzir Shiblak warned.

Local residents of the shantytown pay 3.22 dollars per cubic metre of water, compared to just 45 cents of a dollar that is paid a few blocks away, across the main avenue, in Rinconada del Lago, one of Lima’s most exclusive neighbourhoods.

food security requires new approach to water:
In the United States, people throw away an estimated 30 percent of all food, corresponding to 40,000 billion liters of irrigation water: enough water to meet the household needs of 500 million people, according to the study.

europe at the world bank:
For far too long European governments have supported policies at the Bank that their domestic constituencies wouldn't tolerate for one second if a foreign bureaucracy imposed them at home. Would social democrats in Denmark tolerate that the World Bank impose on them "education reforms" like the school fees that have blocked access to primary education in Africa? Would Labor Party activists in Britain tolerate that the World Bank impose on them "health sector reforms" like clinic fees blocking access to prenatal care? Would European social democrats have tolerated that the World Bank impose on them the corrupt privatization of the water utility in Bolivia, the corrupt privatization of public pensions in Chile and Argentina, the destruction of Mozambique's cashew nut processing industry, the "labor sector reforms" that undermined the right to organize?

water and agriculture in MENA:
Nearly 80 per cent of all water which falls in the region is used, compared with only two per cent in other regions such as Latin America, the Caribbean and Sub-Saharan Africa. The water crisis is expected to worsen further in light of high population growth and climate change. In fact, it is estimated that per capita water availability in the region will fall by half by 2050.
(...) In the Arab world, only 10-15 per cent of the water is used for household, commercial and industrial purposes, while 85 per cent is being consumed by the agricultural sector. But in many MENA countries, this sector's contribution to employment and gross domestic product (GDP) is very limited. In Jordan for example, employment in agriculture is less than four per cent of the total labour force, and its contribution to the GDP is less than three per cent. Yet the agricultural sector consumes more than 75 per cent of the country's water resources. Meanwhile, in Oman the agricultural sector uses more than 90 per cent of the country's water, it only employs about 6.5 per cent of the labour force and its contribution to the GDP is about 1.5 per cent. ... In the absence of enough jobs and lack of effective social safety nets, reform policies targeting the agricultural sector would severely affect people who are linked directly or indirectly to this sector. The biggest riddle is that although an eventual water crisis was evident decades ago, MENA countries chose to avoid the controversial issue.