25  Community empowerment

Opportunities and challenges for Bolivia’s water sector

Paola Ramallo and Elena Ostrovskaya

Introduction

Large parts of the world population live in areas where the freshwater supply is not secure. A recent study found that as much as 80 percent of the world’s population is exposed to high levels of threat to water security (Vörösmarty et al., 2010). According to a UNICEF/WHO report (2012: 2) almost 780 million people lack access to safe drinking water and 2.5 billion – 40 percent of the world’s population – have no access to improved sanitation. Adding to this grim picture is the threat of climate change and a growing population. Degradation of water bodies and changes in rainfall patterns, which affect the hydrological ...

Get A Changing Environment for Human Security now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.