UN report flags global ‘water bankruptcy’ as Africa faces rising risks

24 01 2026 | 23:12 ESI Africa

“Water bankruptcy is becoming a driver of fragility, displacement, and conflict,” says UN Under-Secretary-General Tshilidzi Marwala, Rector of UNU.

The UN research cites chronic groundwater depletion, land and soil degradation, deforestation, pollution and the accelerating impacts of global heating.

The report, Global Water Bankruptcy: Living Beyond Our Hydrological Means in the Post-Crisis Era, says familiar terms such as “water stress” and “water crisis” no longer reflect realities in many regions, including large parts of Africa (North and Sub-Saharan Africa specifically), where irreversible losses of natural water capital have left systems unable to recover to historic baselines.

“This report tells an uncomfortable truth: many regions are living beyond their hydrological means, and many critical water systems are already bankrupt,” said lead author Kaveh Madani, Director of the UN University’s Institute for Water, Environment and Health (UNU-INWEH), known as the UN’s think tank on water.

Water depletion continues

Expressed in financial terms, the report says many societies have not only overspent their annual renewable water “income” from rivers, soils and snowpack, but have also depleted long-term “savings” in aquifers, glaciers, wetlands and other natural reservoirs, resulting in compacted aquifers, subsided land in deltas and coastal cities, vanished lakes and wetlands, and irreversibly lost biodiversity.

The UNU report is based on a peer-reviewed paper to be published in Water Resources Management.

It formally defines water bankruptcy as persistent over-withdrawal from surface and groundwater relative to renewable inflows and safe levels of depletion.

This definition includes the resulting irreversible or prohibitively costly loss of water-related natural capital.

By contrast, “water stress” reflects high pressure that remains reversible, while “water crisis” describes acute shocks that can be overcome.

Critical water systems cross ‘irreversible thresholds’

The report was issued ahead of a high-level meeting in Dakar, Senegal, between 26 and 27 January to prepare the 2026 UN Water Conference, to be co-hosted by the United Arab Emirates and Senegal from 2 to 4 December in the UAE.

While not every basin and country is water-bankrupt, Madani said enough critical systems have crossed irreversible thresholds to fundamentally alter the global risk landscape, with impacts transmitted through trade, migration, climate feedbacks and geopolitical dependencies.

Drawing on global datasets and recent scientific evidence, the report presents a statistical overview of trends, including shrinking lakes, declining aquifers, wetland loss, glacier retreat and rising human exposure to water insecurity, drought and land subsidence.

It warns that agriculture, which accounts for the vast majority of freshwater use, sits at the centre of interconnected risks to food systems, markets and political stability.

Key insights into addressing water crisis

Madani outlined four essential points:

water cannot be protected if the hydrological cycle and natural capital are damaged;
water can serve as a bridge for cooperation across political divides;
investment in water supports climate, biodiversity and desertification goals; and
a renewed global emphasis on water could help reenergise stalled international processes.

The report calls for a reset of the global water agenda, arguing that a narrow focus on drinking water, sanitation and incremental efficiency improvements is no longer fit for purpose in many places.

It urges formal recognition of water bankruptcy, elevation of water in climate and development negotiations, improved monitoring using Earth observation and modelling, and use of water as a catalyst for cooperation among UN member states.

Water as a ‘justice’ issue

It also warns that water bankruptcy is not only a hydrological problem but a justice issue, with disproportionate burdens falling on smallholder farmers, Indigenous Peoples, low-income urban residents, women and youth.

“Water bankruptcy is becoming a driver of fragility, displacement, and conflict,” said UN Under-Secretary-General Tshilidzi Marwala, Rector of UNU.

Upcoming milestones, including the 2026 and 2028 UN Water Conferences, the end of the Water Action Decade in 2028 and the 2030 SDG deadline, were identified as critical opportunities to implement the shift.

Despite its warnings, the report says, the declaration of global water bankruptcy is intended as a starting point for honesty, realism and transformation rather than resignation.