How water scarcity is driving hunger and displacement on three continents

By Sudhansu R. Das 

The world’s true wealth isn’t buried deep in mines. It is all around us—in the glittering expanse of oceans, the life-giving flow of rivers, the richness of forests, the majesty of hills, and the irreplaceable tapestry of biodiversity. This is the planet’s “surface gold.” Its value—measured in sustenance, livelihoods, and life itself—infinitely outweighs the extracted treasures of precious metals and minerals. 

Yet, tragically, too many leaders overlook this foundational capital, ignoring the permanent prosperity it can generate for a world fixated on the transient.

Humanity’s misguided quest for dominance, expressed through the endless accumulation of wealth and military power, has sown only war, violence, and displacement. Our path has been marred by environmental disregard, the dangerous push toward monoculture, trade monopolies, and intolerance. This has diminished our civilization and eroded the quality of life everywhere. The evidence is stark. 

The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World report (2025) estimates that 673 million people faced hunger in 2024, with projections of 512 million chronically undernourished by 2030. Africa, a continent of immense biodiversity, will be home to nearly 60% of this hunger.

This crisis indicts our prevailing economic model, which prioritizes narrow business interests over the integrated development of human potential. Our baser impulses—lust for power, wealth, and gratification—have clouded our finer sensibilities, allowing a destructive tamasik force to overshadow our innate satwik nature.

As Cindy McCain, Executive Director of the World Food Programme, has noted, while funding shortfalls are critical, money alone cannot solve hunger. The permanent solution lies in a sustainable development model. Asia’s plight is particularly shocking. Sitting on natural granaries, Asian nations are failing to achieve food security. South Asia has the highest undernourishment rate (15.6%), and the region is home to 64% of the world's malnourished children. 

This is a profound failure. The erosion of crop diversity, environmental degradation, and mismanagement of resources are intensifying hunger in the world’s most fertile lands. At the heart of this brewing global food crisis is the mismanagement of our most vital surface gold: water.

Healthy water bodies are the elixir of life and growth. More precious than any mineral, water provides life, livelihood, nutrition, energy, and employment. It sustains fisheries, biodiversity, tourism, and navigation. Yet, for decades, we have engaged in its wanton destruction. A 2026 UN report warns of a new era of "global water bankruptcy," with over half of the world’s large lakes shrinking since the 1990s and billions losing access to clean sources.

Europe is not spared. In 2023, water scarcity affected nearly a third of the EU's territory and population. Southern Europe faces permanent stress, a harbinger of a drier future.

In Africa, water scarcity is driving a full-spectrum crisis—hunger, malnutrition, displacement, disease, and unrest. 

The State of Africa’s Environment 2025 report warns that water stress could displace 700 million Africans by 2030. The shift from an eco-friendly existence to a reckless, consumptive lifestyle, coupled with political failure to protect resources, is fueling a man-made disaster that threatens to erase indigenous energy, creativity, and cultural diversity.

Across Asia and the Middle East, the over-exploitation and pollution of rivers, lakes, and aquifers constitute a crime against humanity. The resulting deaths, disease, desertification, and mass migration have yet to spur a collective awakening to see water for what it is: the real gold. The toxic cocktail of vote-bank politics, populism, dictatorship, and sheer ignorance paralyzes the political will needed for protection. What manner of economic growth is this, when people lack clean water to drink and air to breathe?

The hour is late. The world desperately needs a new leadership—one endowed with higher consciousness, courage, and human sensitivity—that can recognize true value. Our social, cultural, religious, and educational institutions must introspect: Are they grooming such stewards? If not, they must reform.

It is time for every nation to protect its foundational wealth: the sacred quartet of water, wood, air, and soil. Our survival and growth depend not on what we extract from the earth, but on what we preserve upon it.