The rising temperatures combined with climate change is likely to create an environment of increasingly dry across the entire globe over the next thirty years.  Water is a cross-cutting issue with poverty, health, exposition to the risks of water-related disasters, environmental degradation, political instability and conflict, and asserts that population growth; increasing consumption and climate change are among the factors that threaten to exacerbate these problems, with grave implications for human security and development.

Photo: River rinning dry due to climate change

In Madagascar , 41 percent of the Malagasy population has access to drinking water in 2010, compared with 47 percent in 2008, according to the United Nations System in Antananarivo. The report was released to mark the UN week of water in the Indian Ocean island country.

Only 14 percent of the rural population has access to safe drinking water and this figure drops to zero in many isolated villages. Although many rural areas in Madagascar contain sources of water stored in naturally occurring, shallow, sandy aquifers, local communities lacked the means to tap into this groundwater.

Photo: Young man collecting water : Madagascar

In 2008, when the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) was launched, Madagascar committed to provide drinking water to 9 millions people and sanitation to 14 millions by 2015. The country also promised to set up 4,800 water points between 2008 and 2015 for 1.5 million users. Unfortunately, we know officially today that the country would not reach this goal because of the political crisis in the country since December 2008. The UN system doubts that the MDGs will be difficult to achieve by Madagascar despite efforts.

Photo: Fetching Water in the town of Ambalavao

Investments for basic human water is needed more than ever in Madagascar : drinking water supply, sanitation and health, food security, mitigation of floods and droughts etc are issues addressed in the UN Millennium Development Goals... and should be at the centre of the meeting at United Nations Climate Change Conference in Cancun Mexico .

Flickr Photo Courtesy of Andriankoto Harinjaka Ratozamanana, September 2010, Town of Ambalavao, southern of MADAGASCAR.

Cross-posted at TH!NK4 - Climate Change