![African woman carrying fish in a basket on her head on the local market in Assomada, Santiago. A large number of West African women rely on the blue economy to survive. MaaikeZaal/GettyImages.](https://i0.wp.com/openrivers.lib.umn.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/maaike_zaal_getty_images-scaled.jpg?fit=330%2C220&ssl=1)
International Development
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![African woman carrying fish in a basket on her head on the local market in Assomada, Santiago. A large number of West African women rely on the blue economy to survive. MaaikeZaal/GettyImages.](https://i0.wp.com/openrivers.lib.umn.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/maaike_zaal_getty_images-scaled.jpg?fit=330%2C220&ssl=1)
![Kenyan women carry water buckets filled with water on their heads during World Water Day after fetching the water at one of the illegal freshwater points in Mathare slums in Nairobi, Kenya, 22 March 2019. International World Water Day is held annually on 22 March as a means of highlighting the importance of freshwater and its management. The theme for the World Water Day In 2019 is 'Leaving no one behind', highlighting whoever you are, wherever you are, water is your human right. EPA-EFE/Daniel Irungu.](https://i0.wp.com/openrivers.lib.umn.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/file-20220112-27-1vjupjv-scaled-1-e1706759864626.jpg?fit=330%2C235&ssl=1)
Time and Trauma
Through interviews, surveys and focus group discussions with 258 households in Mathare during 2016 and 2017, I found that women faced huge challenges and trauma in collecting water. Besides the woes of finding a running tap and wasting valuable time waiting in queues, procuring water entails physical hardship that often leads to mental agony that sometimes even threatens the women’s safety.
![A large expanse of solar panels are being baked by the sun.](https://i0.wp.com/openrivers.lib.umn.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Solar-panels_header-e1532020895292.jpg?fit=330%2C68&ssl=1)
Water as a Source of Regional Cooperation in the Middle East: The Work of EcoPeace Middle East in Jordan, Israel, and Palestine
Water is at the core of sustaining all life on earth, and the people who have inhabited the arid and semi-arid lands of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region throughout the centuries know this very well. Scarcity of water in the region has shaped its history and geopolitics, including into the present day, with climate change and population growth putting more pressure on already scarce water resources (World Bank 2018).
![A landscape of water in Kyrgyzstan.](https://i0.wp.com/openrivers.lib.umn.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Kyrgyzstan-no-attrib.-req.-Frantisek-Duris-Unsplash-e1706766449170.jpg?fit=330%2C186&ssl=1)
Water, Conflict, and Peace
We live on a water planet. As the writer Arthur C. Clark noted, if we didn’t happen to be land-dwelling creatures, we would call our planet Ocean, rather than Earth. And for humans, fresh water is critical for life, health, our economies, and vibrant ecosystems. The vast majority of water on the planet—more than 97 percent—is salt water, in our oceans.
![A view of St. Paul, with the Wabasha Bridge over the Mississippi River in the foreground. At left is Harriet Island Regional Park and at top right is the Smith Avenue High Bridge. (Pioneer Press: Scott Takushi)](https://i0.wp.com/openrivers.lib.umn.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/20131015__StPaul_MississippiRiver_HarrietIsland_Wabashabridge_highbridge.jpg?fit=330%2C193&ssl=1)
St. Paul Mayor, Others Set Clean Mississippi River goals
Mayors from the United States, including several associated with the Mississippi River Cities and Towns Initiative, were in Paris for the deliberations at COP21. As Mayor of St. Paul Chris Coleman wrote before the trip, “the stakes [connecting climate change to river health] could not be higher”. In Paris, the mayors from the Mississippi River valley found common cause with mayors from other river cities across the world, arguing that river basins merited increased attention as food-producing regions supporting billions of people worldwide.
![Women fishers voice concerns about the Tonle Sap in Cambodia. Mekong Commons.](https://i0.wp.com/openrivers.lib.umn.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Photo-3-e1447412333418.jpg?fit=330%2C248&ssl=1)
Women fishers voice concerns about the Tonle Sap in Cambodia
Women fishers in Cambodia are expressing concern about the impacts of dams on the Tonle Sap Lake, an impoundment in the Lower Mekong river delta.