A/HRC/37/30 12. Scarcity of water is a case in point. Water is a fundamental human right, but 2.1 billion people still lack access to safe drinking water. Most of them live in fragile, often violent regions of the world where water is a matter of life and death. 6 Shortage of water has been an essential factor leading to conflict, violence and social unrest in many cases. For example, researchers have found that the Syrian conflict that began in 2011, although having its roots in issues including long-standing political, religious and social ideological disputes, was exacerbated by severe water shortages in the region resulting from multi-year droughts since the mid-2000s. That contributed to the displacement of large populations from rural to urban centres, resulted in food insecurity for more than 1 million people, increased unemployment, and contributed to political instability, violence and social unrest.7 13. In several countries and regions in Africa, there have been disputes and conflicts over the control of water sources and land for pasture and farming. 8 In Latin America, poor or inequitable management of water services has also caused social unrest (see E/2016/58, paras. 21–22). Conflicts have also arisen from the overexploitation of groundwater for agribusinesses or industrial purposes, depriving local communities and farmers of sufficient and reliable water access. In 2015, small farmers in the town of Ocucaje in the Ica Valley, Peru, clashed with workers laying the pipes that would pump water from three wells and channel it to a farm eight miles away that produces table grapes for export. As a result of pumping over the last two decades by companies in the Ica Valley, groundwater levels have fallen throughout much of the area. The town is already struggling with serious water shortages and villagers are concerned that the proposed pumping would further threaten water supplies.9 14. Unchecked urbanization poses another risk to the enjoyment of economic, social and cultural rights. Over the last decades, the world has experienced an unprecedented shift of its population from rural to urban areas. Today, more than half the world’s population live in cities and peri-urban areas. In many parts of the world, rapid rural to urban migration is motivated by the prospect of greater employment opportunities and the hope of a better life in cities. However, when such migration happens in an unplanned and unprepared manner, and especially in the context of widespread poverty, it exacerbates many of the risks and challenges already faced by cities and leads to further deterioration in the enjoyment of human rights. The result is sprawling slums and informal settlements that are often built in precarious and unsafe areas prone to degradation and natural disasters and a lack or inadequate provision of basic services, including education, health and water and sanitation. 15. That fuels social instability, urban violence and social unrest. Unemployment among youth and dissatisfaction over future prospects are linked with social unrest and often associated with extremism (see E/2016/58, para. 14). Widening inequality, competition over scarce resources such as land, impunity and weak city governance increase the risk of violence and potential breakdowns in law and order. 16. Rapid urbanization inevitably results in increased demand for housing units and had led to unregulated real estate and land speculation, predatory mortgage lending and commodification of housing. The shortage of affordable housing not only contributes to social exclusion, it also threatens to destabilize the wider economy if housing price increases fuel property bubbles, coupled with mortgage crises and deregulated global flows of capital, as was seen in the 2007 mortgage crises in many countries, which had devastating effects on low-income households and households living in poverty (see A/71/310, para. 22). 6 7 8 9 4 See Global High-level Panel on Water and Peace, A Matter of Survival (2017), pp. 11–14. See Peter H. Gleick, “Water, drought, climate change, and conflict in Syria”, Weather, Climate, and Society, vol. 6, No. 3 (July 2014). See the Pacific Institute database on water conflict for more examples from around the world, available from http://worldwater.org/water-conflict/. See Desert Sun, “The costs of Peru’s farming boom: thriving agribusiness, declining aquifers and conflicts over water”, available at www.desertsun.com/story/news/environment/2015/12/10/costsperus-farming-boom/76605530/.