“Sana’a might very well become the first capital in the world to run out of water,” write Gregory D. Johnsen and Christopher Boucek in a February 2009 article in Foreign Policy. With massive population growth, rapidly shrinking freshwater availability, and weak governance, Yemen’s unsustainable water management policies are exacerbating the threat of international terrorism as the state devolves into a sanctuary for al Qaeda jihadists and other transnational criminals.

Today, Yemen is among the world’s most water-scarce countries. According to the most recent data collected in 2005, Yemen’s freshwater availability has dropped to a mere 186 cubic meters per capita per year – well below the international water poverty line of 1,000 cubic meters per capita per year. Below that, water begins to severely limit “economic development and human health and well-being.”

And since the latest data collection, according to Johnsen and Boucek, overexploitation of groundwater aquifers to satisfy a burgeoning population has resulted in “dramatically falling water tables—up to several meters per year in some places.”

To make matters worse, an annual population growth rate of 3.2 percent, driven by a total fertility rate of 6.2 children per woman, means the population will grow from 22.2 million today to 35.2 million by 2050, putting further pressure on an already-scarce resource.

In Yemen, the “lack of any serious legal oversight, reckless irrigation techniques, and unregulated private exploitation” are clear indicators of poor governance. Nevertheless, the government has begun working with the World Bank to implement an integrated water management program. “Support for the water sector is receiving high priority,” said Nabil Shaiban of Yemen’s Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation, in an interview with IRIN News.

But despite these efforts, the government’s weakness and the country’s “gun-slinging tribal culture” present serious challenges to water management. According to IRIN News, “tribesmen seize control of water projects nearing completion, intending to use them for irrigating their farms.” This occurs with about “80 percent of projects in rural areas,” Ahmed al-Sufi, an information officer with Yemen’s National Water and Sanitation Foundation, told IRIN News.

And so the problems of poor water management and weak governance are circular. As water scarcity worsens, the government’s attempts to mitigate it are undermined by its weak control over the state. But without successful policies to mitigate water scarcity, the government’s legitimacy is further weakened.

With water woes aggravating Yemeni citizens and weakening the government’s authority, al Qaeda and other transnational terror groups are recruiting jihadists and using ungoverned areas as training grounds and safe havens. Forty-five percent of Yemen’s population is under 15 years old—and some claim al Qaeda is now actively recruiting boys as young as 12. With water scarcity worsening economic and human development, Yemen’s youth are particularly susceptible to al Qaeda’s promises of social justice and opportunities for advancement.

Al Qaeda recently made its capabilities in Yemen clear with a September 18, 2008, attack against the U.S. embassy in Sana’a. Several car bombs and rocket-propelled grenades killed 16 people—the deadliest attack against a U.S. target in Yemen since the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole in 2000. According to The Economist, last March “al Qaeda websites posted a message advising members to head for Yemen.”

To be clear, water scarcity is not the only issue plaguing the Gulf state. Falling oil prices and mismanaged oil reserves are making Yemen’s chronic economic and human development problems much worse. But assistance from the international community in implementing effective water-management policies would lend credibility to the government and could bolster its ability to prevent al Qaeda from training terrorists within its borders.

According to the U.S. Army field manual on stability operations, “The greatest threats to our national security will not come from emerging ambitious states but from nations unable or unwilling to meet the basic needs and aspirations of their people.” If Yemen’s government cannot provide even a minimal level of water security for its citizens, it risks becoming a failed state on par with Somalia or Zimbabwe.

Over the long term, a comprehensive approach to development that balances voluntary family planning with effective natural resource management would help reduce pressure on scarce resources and bring lasting stability to the country, while serving U.S. national security interests in the War on Terror.

Photo: In Taiz, south of the capital city of Sana’a, children fill up their water jugs outside a mosque. Courtesy of flickr user Osama Al-Eryani.

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The BBC has produced an excellent multimedia package (including articles, videos, and a narrated slideshow) on the controversial Gibe III dam in Ethiopia, which could threaten the livelihoods of nearly 500,000 people.

According to New Directions for Integrating Environment and Development in East Africa, the following activities are successfully promoting sustainable, integrated development in the region: “community-based management of natural resources for local livelihoods; natural resource-based businesses that benefit communities and the environment, including markets for environmental services; integrating population issues into development activities; connecting initiatives within landscapes; promoting integrated approaches in the formal policy process; and policy research and networks for advocacy.”

Flamingoes, giraffes, buffaloes, and other wildlife are at risk from forest fires in Kenya, according to the BBC. Police believe some of the fires were set deliberately by people opposed to relocated away from protected areas.

The Center for American Progress (CAP) has released two new reports on Afghanistan. Swords and Ploughshares: Sustainable Security in Afghanistan Requires Sweeping U.S. Policy Overhaul describes a three-day simulation conducted by CAP and argues that sweeping U.S. foreign-assistance reform is essential to stabilizing Afghanistan. Sustainable Security in Afghanistan: Crafting an Effective and Responsible Strategy for the Forgotten Front sets forth short-, medium-, and long-term policy goals for Afghanistan.

The UN Population Division has raised its low population projection for 2050, reports Ben Block on Worldchanging. The revision in the estimate was largely due to a rise in births in Europe and the United States.

U.S. journalists “are by and large dying for the opportunity to go overseas and learn about a whole range of issues, from refugees to human rights,” but often lack the support of their editors—the “gatekeepers”—to do so, said Louise Lief, deputy director of the International Reporting Project (IRP), at a February 26, 2009, event, “Reporting From Uganda: U.S. Media Cover Health, Environment, and Security.” Leif was joined by Paul Hendrie, department editor at Congressional Quarterly (CQ); David Rocks, senior editor at BusinessWeek; and Ben de La Cruz, a staff video journalist at The Washington Post, to discuss the recent IRP Gatekeeper trip to Uganda.

President Museveni’s Surprising Views

“One of the advantages of these trips is when you go with a critical mass of 12 very senior editors…you can often get in to see the head of state,” said Leif, describing the group’s sit-down interview with President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda. One “big surprise for me was President Museveni’s views on population,” which he did not consider a challenge, said Lief, despite the country’s high total fertility rate of 6.7 children per woman.

She was heartened that the country’s poor infrastructure, including bad roads and unreliable electricity, did not deter Ugandan children from obtaining an education. “All along the road in brightly colored clothing there were thousands and thousands of children,” she said. “Some of them were walking for kilometers, but they were going to school.”

Organic Farmers Fight DDT in Uganda

“These things that we deal with in Washington every day have a real impact in the real world,” said CQ’s Paul Hendrie. He wrote a story on the Ugandan debate over using the pesticide DDT to combat the country’s significant malaria problem. “As one expert put it to me, ‘Farmers love DDT because it kills everything,’ and that’s why it was so popular”—and why it was banned in the United States.

“Uganda has developed an industry, a fledgling industry, of certified organic farmers. They’re the leading organic exporter in Africa and thirteenth in the world,” explained Hendrie. Farmers are concerned “that if traces of DDT are found in these products, they’ll be shut out of markets, especially in Europe, their biggest market.”

“It’s kind of ironic then that in Uganda now, today, the fight against the use of DDT is not being so much led by environmentalists as by farmers, and specifically organic farmers,” Hendrie noted.

Investigating Uganda’s Economy

“In a developing country, what is it that moves people, that makes the economy grow?” BusinessWeek’s David Rocks wondered before visiting Uganda.

“One of the companies that struck me was Kiwi Shoe Polish,” he said. Many people keep their shoes “for 10 or 15 years, so you have to keep them shined and polished and in good shape in order to use them.” But Chinese companies have begun counterfeiting the polish, causing Kiwi’s sales to plummet 50 percent in the last year. “It’s the poorest of the poor who are getting ripped off,” he said.

“I think that there is a lot of room for interesting economic and business stories to be done from Africa,” said Rocks, who is a senior editor at the magazine. “I hope to get my people to do more and more of that.”

Seeds of Peace in the IDP Camps

“The focus of my reporting was basically on security issues in the north, in the Gulu region, where there’s been a 20-year civil war,” said Ben de la Cruz, who filmed several videos for The Washington Post documenting the dangers of life in Uganda’s internally displaced persons (IDP) camps. In the online multimedia presentation “Seeds of Peace,” IDPs tell their wrenching stories, and peace mediator (and former Wilson Center Scholar) Betty Bigombe provides historical and political context on Uganda’s civil war.

“Despite the two years of relative peace, lots of people are still living in the camps and are afraid to leave,” de la Cruz explained. “There’s a huge fear factor because of Joseph Kony’s rebels—even though they had a ceasefire, they’re always afraid he’s going to come back.”

Photos: From top to bottom: Louis Lief, Paul Hendrie, David Rocks, and Ben de la Cruz. Courtesy of Dave Hawxhurst and the Woodrow Wilson Center.

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Arab Environment: Future Challenges, the 2008 report of the Arab Forum for Environment and Development, addresses a wide range of issues, including desertification, urbanization, water resources, waste management, air quality, climate change, and the environmental impact of conflict.

Water: A Global Innovation Outlook Report, distills insights from several of IBM’s “deep dives” on water and business, agriculture, infrastructure, and data.

“Securing Our Future: Environmental Security in Mongolia,” a YouTube video from the Asia Foundation, highlights the Foundation’s efforts to ensure that mining in Mongolia protects human and environmental health.

The Economist examines competing claims to land in Peru, where concessions for mining and oil and gas exploration are often “superimposed on towns, farms and natural parks.”

The Washington Post reviewed Sex and War: How Biology Explains War and Offers a Path to Peace this week. Author Malcolm Potts presented the book at the Wilson Center last month, and discusses the themes in a short YouTube video.

In Jordan, “we investigated about forty wells, and in a large number of them we found high levels of naturally occurring radium,” says Avner Vengosh in this short expert interview from the Environmental Change and Security Program (ECSP). “Several studies have shown that long-term exposure to this element in drinking water would increase the probability of bone cancer and leukemia,” and “millions of people are potentially going to be exposed to this level of radium,” he warns. In this short video, ECSP visits Vengosh, associate professor of earth and ocean sciences at Duke University, on location in Durham, North Carolina. Vengosh discusses his recent discovery of naturally occurring radioactivity in Jordan’s fossil groundwater at levels up to 2000 percent higher than the international drinking-water standard.

The UN Population Division updated its population predictions through 2050 this week, and global population is now expected to surpass 9 billion by 2050, with most of this growth occurring in developing countries. Andrew Revkin of the New York Times reflected on the findings on his Dot Earth blog.

Although many of Rwanda’s national development policies recognize the links between population, health, environment, and poverty, actually implementing cross-sectoral collaboration remains challenging. A new policy brief from the Population Reference Bureau examines prospects for—and progress in—integrating these sectors. For more on population, health, and environment in Rwanda, read Rachel Weisshaar’s from-the-field dispatches on the New Security Beat.

“Population growth, climate change and demand for greater food and energy supplies are squeezing global water supplies, according to a new U.N. report,” says the New York Times/Greenwire. The report, Water in a Changing World, will be officially launched at the World Water Forum in Istanbul on March 16, 2009.

Karen Hardee and Kimberly Rovin discuss how population affects Ethiopia’s ability to adapt to climate change and increase its citizens’ food security in an article for peopleandplanet.net.

The Canadian Broadcasting Company’s The Current examines the global politics of water in a season-long series entitled “Watershed.” Recent episodes have highlighted desalination in Israel, collapsing fisheries in Nova Scotia, and Karachi’s black market in water.

“What is the thing that may make the world as peaceful as possible?” asks Malcolm Potts in this video from the Environment Change and Security Program. “I think it’s very important to give women as much autonomy in society as we possibly can; to fight as hard as possible for women’s equality. Because these behaviors that created warriors never benefited women.”

In this short expert analysis, Malcolm Potts, Bixby Professor of Population and Family Planning at the University of California Berkeley, discusses his latest book, Sex and War: How Biology Explains Warfare and Terrorism and Offers a Path to a Safer World. To learn more, please see a full summary and complete video of Malcom Potts speaking recently about his book at a February 11, 2009, Wilson Center event.

Contrary to what many people might think, most migration is within the developing world—“among countries that already face enormous challenges in terms of provisions for their populations, but also ethnic conflict,” says Christian Leuprecht in this short video preview of his article, “Migration as the Demographic Wild Card in Civil Conflict: Mauritius and Fiji,” now appearing in the 13th issue of Environmental Change and Security Program Report.