This a truly big problem that has been going surfaced for decades, and I honestly have become split...
On one side, France in particular, but many other "developed" nations as well have stepped in to build the infrastructure and provide clean water to places where it was problematic.
Only to monopolize water distribution one way or the other, resulting in people not able to afford the water at the end, while losing their previous precarious access to dirty but natural sources as well.
Nestle, Danone are the poster child of these predatory moves.
On the other side, there few places poorer countries can turn to. Japan might be one, but they suck at diplomacy. Then there is China, and they need to be willing to dance.
And places lacking water tend to lack education and political freedom as well.
I'd want to hold higher hopes, but it only ever progresses so slowly, as the incentives are basically stacked against real progress.
Has anyone more than small scale feel good stories or "promising advancements". Do we have things that really improved at scale in the last ten or twenty years ?
>Has anyone more than small scale feel good stories or "promising advancements". Do we have things that really improved at scale in the last ten or twenty years ?
Yes, things are improving all the time. There are all sorts of organizations recording various metrics of quality of life kinds of things and the trends across the board are upwards, it's just very easy to live in a bubble and have no idea how things actually are across the world.
Thank you, that's a really good point: we hear about the dire stuff but seldom about the steady improvements.
These numbers are to be taken with a spoon of salt though.
Randomly taking the Republic of Congo as an example, it's currently in an acute crisis as a result of heavy conflicts, and water is trucked by health international organizations as part of the relief effort [0].
So thar 8.6 point improvement on sanitization and clean water access on the EPI scale is a bit head scratcher [1]
>the Republic of Congo as an example, it's currently in an acute crisis as a result of heavy conflicts
It is by no means acute, DRC has been chaotic with war for decades and has likewise been towards the bottom of these kinds of lists of quality of life, an improvement from 2014-2024 is entirely believable because it wouldn't take much.
The news there from 2014 sounds very much like the news there from 2024
> On one side, France in particular, but many other "developed" nations as well have stepped in to build the infrastructure and provide clean water to places where it was problematic.
> Only to monopolize water distribution one way or the other, resulting in people not able to afford the water at the end, while losing their previous precarious access to dirty but natural sources as well.
> Nestle, Danone are the poster child of these predatory moves.
I've heard of Nestlé monopolising water in developing countries, but didn't know Danone nor France itself (private companies, Swiss or French, aren't "France") being involved. Do you have concrete stories you can share?
For Danone it's more of a growing ambition. They've depleted water sources in France at multiple times and have declared aiming for more engagement on the African market for the next decades [0]. Their involvement is more in partnership with Veolia which holds the main contracts [1], so I should have put Veolia forward for more clarity, but I see Danone as just not being good enough at this game to be shunned at the bigger players' level.
> nor France itself (private companies, Swiss or French, aren't "France")
These companies aren't existing in a vacuum, and the French government will protect these interests when shit hits the fan. Veolia in particular is basically a private arm managing a critical field that should be government managed in any other setting.
It would be like saying that Lockheed Martin is a private company that doesn't involve the USA, when the government will bend over backward to protect these interests.
Governments go to bat for their companies all the time. Via diplomacy, war, etc. Have you ever heard the justification for US bombs being dropped... 90% of the time its "to protect US interests", aka the US companies' ability to do business there. Trade deals exist to make it easier for one nation's businesses to profit in another nation. Foreign aid is similar - it's a nation paying it's own businesses for stuff to be delivered to another country... a nice combination of marketing, subsidy and to some extent "the first one's free kid".
Trying to separate the government of a nation and it's businesses is not so simple as "a government did it" or "a company did it".
> Then there is China, and they need to be willing to dance.
They need to dance no matter what, let's be real. Be that for the Chinese government, be that for whichever government, be it hearing out some religious org proselytizing at them, be it enduring stupid and infantilizing designs like those water wells that were powered by a children's spinning playground thing, it really isn't that shocking that these places don't have water still. You basically need to put up with some combination of public relations people who look down on you, celebrities who look down on you, politicians who look down on you, religious folk who look down on you, and all to get a damn well with a filter on it.
> Do we have things that really improved at scale in the last ten or twenty years ?
There's nothing really to improve. This could be solved in a matter of weeks, if we wanted. But as with most things like this, the solution isn't sexy, it isn't interesting, and unless you monetize it as you describe, it isn't profitable. This isn't a problem silicon valley can solve with an app that's name is a regular word with vowels removed from it, so they don't give a shit. Nestle can't change people for it, so they aren't stepping up. Every charity comes with some or another condescending string attached, even if it's nothing more nefarious than they're going to take selfies or video or whatever with them helping the needy, that's not nothing and it's still denigrating.
Wells and filters are not a site of innovation, not really. We know how to build them, but the under-serviced people remain because servicing them won't make money, so nobody cares.
They need to dance because they don’t have the intelligence and diligence to do things themselves. It’s not really anybody else’s fault. Beggars can’t be choosers.
>Has anyone more than small scale feel good stories or "promising advancements". Do we have things that really improved at scale in the last ten or twenty years ?
Did you read the article?There's a graph right there. The website also has lots of other data, most things are steadily improving.
On one side, France in particular, but many other "developed" nations as well have stepped in to build the infrastructure and provide clean water to places where it was problematic.
Only to monopolize water distribution one way or the other, resulting in people not able to afford the water at the end, while losing their previous precarious access to dirty but natural sources as well.
Nestle, Danone are the poster child of these predatory moves.
On the other side, there few places poorer countries can turn to. Japan might be one, but they suck at diplomacy. Then there is China, and they need to be willing to dance.
And places lacking water tend to lack education and political freedom as well.
I'd want to hold higher hopes, but it only ever progresses so slowly, as the incentives are basically stacked against real progress.
Has anyone more than small scale feel good stories or "promising advancements". Do we have things that really improved at scale in the last ten or twenty years ?