Not everyone gets a fair share: Who you are, and how much you earn, affects whether you have clean water, enough food and electricity.
The points to remember
- Inequalities in income, race, gender and cultural identity lead to unequal access to water, food and energy.
- They exist within a society (rich and poor districts) and between societies (rich and poor countries).
- Income: poor households cannot afford an electricity supply, clean water or enough food.
- Privatization: a private company owns the water supply and sets prices; the poor may be priced out.
- Gender: women and girls often fetch water and fuel, losing time for school and paid work.
- Race and cultural identity: minority and indigenous groups are often the last to be connected.
Remember it as: Income, race, gender, culture: four reasons some go without.
Example: in 2000 the city of Cochabamba, Bolivia, handed its water supply to a private company (privatization). Water bills rose sharply, and poor families could not pay. Mass protests, the 'water war', forced the government to cancel the deal.
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Water
- Families not on the piped network buy water from sellers, often paying more per litre than richer homes.
Food
- Poor families spend most of their income on food, so a price rise means eating less.
Energy
- Hundreds of millions of people, most in sub-Saharan Africa, have no electricity at home.
Unequal access does not fix itself. It keeps poor households poor, a reinforcing loop (1.2).
Race and cultural identity: Many homes in the Navajo Nation, an indigenous territory in the USA, still have no piped water, while nearby towns do.
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When some people have far more of a resource than others, conflict can follow.
How unequal access leads to conflict
- Water, food, fertile land, fossil fuels and ores are unevenly spread around the world.
- A resource shared across borders, such as a river, can set countries against each other.
- A country may even invade another, or armed groups fight, to control a resource.
- Price rises for food, water or fuel can lead to protests and riots.
- Within a country, groups clash over who owns a resource, and over its price and rules.
- Inequality grows from inside (population growth, overuse) or outside (climate change, war): drought is argued to be one cause of Syria's 2011 war.
Between countries
- The Nile: Ethiopia's new dam upstream worries Egypt and Sudan downstream, who depend on its water.
Within a country
- Cochabamba, 2000: poor residents protested when water became too costly to buy.
Always say how it leads to conflict: Describing who has more and who has less is only half an answer. Link each point to the conflict it causes.
How this comes up: Paper 2, Section B (b): explain how the unequal distribution of resources can lead to conflict [7].
In a dry region, a few large farms own the best grazing land and most of the wells. In drought years, herders' pastures shrink and their animals die.
Explain how the unequal distribution of land and water in this region can lead to conflict.
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