The future of water isn’t a simple topic – it is vast and can often be overwhelming. During the discussion we will explore how this topic can be made accessible through the power of storytelling and film.

We will premiere four short documentaries which were produced as part of the global sH2Orts film competition, organised by WaterAid in partnership with the Public Media Alliance’s WorldView project. Each film offers a unique insight into the global water crisis and urges us to think about how we can respond to it.

The discussion which follows will focus on climate change, innovation, urbanisation and inequality – and how they relate to the global water crisis.

Panelists

Mark Galloway, Director of International Broadcasting Trust (Moderator)

Before joining IBT, Mark worked as a journalist, current affairs producer and documentary filmmaker. He’s been a Channel 4 Commissioning Editor, responsible for Education and Features, and has made films for ITV, Channel 4, the BBC, Discovery and Al Jazeera, winning more than a dozen national and international awards including a Gold Medal at the New York Film Festival, a Peabody Award and a BAFTA. At IBT, Mark is responsible for the day to day running of the organization, overall strategy, research and relations with IBT’s members.

Alok Jha is a journalist, broadcaster and author of The Water Book. He is the science correspondent at ITV News. Before that, he spent a decade at the Guardian and made programmes for the BBC.

Bethlehem Mengistu has over 12 years experience in the development sector, with special focus on gender equality, human rights, good governance and provision of basic services. She has worked within senior roles for organizations such as WaterAid, Care International, Action Aid and notable grassroots women’s organizations in East Africa. Bethlehem has solid experience in programme management, strategic campaigning and advocacy and policy analysis. Her educational background is in Law and Sociology and is currently working at WaterAid as Regional Advocacy Manager for East Africa and Acting Country Representative for WaterAid in Ethiopia.

Menka Sanghvi is an innovation researcher and facilitator focusing on global health and wellbeing. At the Humanitarian Innovation Fund she leads a dedicated fund to improve water, sanitation and hygiene conditions for vulnerable communities. In her role she supports a wide range of project teams in building ideas, testing them out, and scaling to achieve better impact. Menka brings over a decade of experience in delivering innovation projects with organisations such as Oxfam, Unilever, Barclays Bank, Impact Hub, and with local communities. She serves as a mentor for the Global Sustainability Jam, and a judge for the UNDP Equator Prize.

Sarah Mosses is CEO of Together Films, a new consultancy working with social issue film content to reach new audiences. She helps filmmakers craft Impact Distribution Campaigns to increase both their social impact, audience reach and revenue potential. As an award winning Producer, Sarah’s debut feature documentary They Will Have To Kill Us First had its World Premiere at SXSW 2015 and European Premiere at London Film Festival 2015. Sarah is a mentor for Documentary Campus, Eso Doc, Sheffield DocFest, On Screen Manitoba, working with emerging producers to enhance their film narrative and distribution/marketing potential.

Film lineup:

PLACE OF SWEET WATERS
Directed by: Sven Harding
2015/South Africa
www.svenharding.com

Place of Sweet Waters will take us to the underground tunnels which run beneath the city of Cape Town, transporting millions of litres of water from Table Mountain directly into the sea. As South Africa grapples with its worst drought in more than 30 years, the film raises questions about why this urban water source is being ‘wasted’.

BLANKETED SNOWS
Directed by: Vardan Hovhannisyan
2015/Armenia
caucadoconline.com/projects/author/25

Filmed in a stunning mountain region of Armenia, Blanketed Snows will encourage the panel to think about how climate change affects water supplies and livelihoods, and how the two are inextricably linked.

AUTOMATIC TUBIG MACHINE
Directed by: Giselle Santos
2015/Philippines
twitter.com/sampunglitro

Automatic Tubig Machine is a fly-on-the-wall documentary about remote communities in the Philippines who are using an innovative water supply technology. During this observational film we are offered a unique and fascinating insight into how children and adults gain access to this vital resource.

THE HOIST
Directed by: Ibrahim S Kamara
2015/Sierra Leone
http://www.wateraid.org/film-competition/sh2orts2016/winners

Set in Sierra Leone, The Hoist looks at the ingenuity of a local young woman who wants to simplify the time-consuming and physical task of collecting water. The film raises questions about the role new technology and innovation can play in the face of the global water crisis.

In a heated debate on Wednesday 11 November at the Frontline Club, a panel of writers and scientists discussed the extent to which a drying world is a contributing factor in the ongoing migration crisis.

Chairing the debate, the Guardian’s environment editor John Vidal began by saying: “The Middle East and North Africa is highly politicised. There’s endless debates we could have about Israel, Iran, Iraq, Syria and so forth, but the question is, is there water at the root of these problems? The answer is probably no, but lets find out.”

James Fergusson, an author and freelance journalist, drew on his experience working in the Middle East and Africa.

He said: “It was in Somalia that I started thinking water really was at the root… The turning point in the war against al-Shabaab, the al-Qaida franchise in Somalia, was about water.

“What was actually going on in Helmand in Southern Afghanistan was a water war… Water is at the root of all of this.”

Professor Tony Allan, an author and academic who advises governments and agencies in the region on water policy reform, contested this idea. “People think that if you run out of water you go to war, but in fact all you do is import some more food.”

He acknowledged that a water shortage is more likely to lead to instability in countries suffering from extreme poverty, but said “it’s food [security] that is the issue.”

Roger Blench, an anthropologist and international development specialist, broadly agreed with Allan: “There is no connection between land degradation, water shortages, rural poverty and revolutionary movements,” he said.

Explorer and filmmaker Mikael Strandberg said that from his experience in Africa, “a lot of people are migrating North to Saudi Arabia not only due to water – that’s a small part – but because they have no other opportunities.”

Fergusson contested the ideas put forward by the three other panellists, saying: “I would certainly contend that water shortage is a prime driver of a lot of conflict which leads on to war. So I would say that Syria, what’s going on now, that began with a conflict about water.”

Blench, however, argued that water conflicts were not the deep-rooted causes for war.

Allan said he agreed with Fergusson about the impact of water at a local level: “I happily agree at a lower level of social organisation and state: farmers kill each other, villages fight each other, conflict is there all the way through. But states don’t go to war over water; it would be really serious if they did.”

Taking Syria as an example, Allan argued that the conflict was a “post-imperial madness, the whole of the Middle East is a post-imperial madness… The instability that is there… is the problem; it isn’t the water.”

Strandberg said that in his experience of speaking to migrants in Yemen, “very rarely do they bring up the issue of water… They have no future – that’s why they leave – so I’ve never heard of the issue of water as being as big as this.”

Blench said that demographic growth was the central problem, and criticised failures to deal with demographic growth through policy. He said: “If we were to have science-based policy then probably priority would be trying to halt land degradation and slow down urban water mismanagement.”

On the matter of policy failure, Blench and Fergusson agreed. Fergusson said he thought policy focus should be: “Much more on soft power solutions like science and technology and… I think that water would be a good place to start.”

Across vast tracks of the world people are running short of a basic commodity: water. There are often many complex reasons that drive migration, but there is an undeniable relationship between water shortages and the large population movements we are seeing today.

For our fourth in a series of events in collaboration with the Scientific Exploration Society, we will be exploring how the effects of climate change are being seen across the Middle East and North Africa, the supply and control of water in the region, and the technologies that are being developed to combat the problem.

Chaired by the Guardian‘s environment editor, John Vidal.

The panel:

Roger Blench is a international development specialist and anthropologist. He has conducted research and evaluations of international development activities worldwide, notably in Nigeria and other regions of West Africa as a consultant and formerly as a research fellow of the Overseas Development Institute in London. He is now affiliated to the McDonald Institute of the University of Cambridge and is chief research officer for the Kay Williamson Educational Foundation.

Mikael Strandberg is a Swedish explorer and filmmaker. He has travelled solo through many parts of the world, including amongst communities in Yemen, through Africa and parts of Asia, and is currently working on a film project with migrants arriving to Sweden.

James Fergusson is an author and freelance journalist. He has written extensively on Afghanistan, Somalia and laterly used his degree in hydrology to write on water security in Yemen. His most recent book The Worlds Most Dangerous Place was nominated for the Orwell Prize.

Professor Tony Allan is based at King’s College London and SOAS London, he specialises in the analysis of water resources in semi-arid regions and on the role of global systems in ameliorating local and regional water deficits. He provides advice to governments and agencies especially in the Middle East on water policy and water policy reform. His is the author of The Middle East water question: hydropolitics and the global economy and Virtual water.

PLEASE NOTE THIS EVENT WILL BE FILMED AND STREAMED LIVE ON OUR YOUTUBE CHANNEL

Sao Paulo, one of the largest cities in the world, may run out of water in the next few months leaving 20 million people high and dry. Who is to blame? Incompetent politicians, unpredictable weather patterns or the wholesale destruction of Amazonia’s rainforests?

How does a country that produces an estimated 12% of the world’s fresh water end up with a chronic shortage of this most essential resource?

Join us for the second in a series of events held in partnership with The Scientific Exploration Society, as we bring together explorers, scientists and journalists to examine the water shortage in Brazil and debate the wider questions about global water security.

Chaired by Andrew Mitchell, a rainforest explorer & advocate. He is the chairman of the Scientific Exploration Society, a forest canopy explorer, founder of the Global Canopy Programme, co-founder of Earthwatch Europe, and Personal Advisor to HRH The Prince of Wales’ Rainforest Project.

The panel:

Peter Bunyard is an author, journalist and founder of The Ecologist. He spent many years exploring and lecturing on the subject of indigenous responsibilities in the Colombian Amazon. More recently, having been alerted to the Biotic Pump theory, he carried out studies in Costa Rica and back home in Cornwall to test the physics of the theory, amassing evidence to challenge current climate modelling on the impact of deforestation in the Amazon Basin.

Sue Cunningham is a photographer, author and trustee of Tribes Alive/Indigenous People’s Cultural Support Trust. She and her husband Patrick Cunningham were awarded the Neville Shulman prize by the Royal Geographical Society for their Heart of Brazil Expedition travelling on the Xingu river by boat, visiting 48 tribal villages and documenting the affects of climate change and man’s dramatic impact on the rain forest.

Rogerio Simoes is a Brazilian journalist based in London. He is a former head of the BBC’s Brazilian Service and has written about Brazil for the CNN website. He was also executive-editor at Brazilian weekly news magazine Epoca and opinion editor and London correspondent at Folha de S.Paulo newspaper.

Nixiwaka Yawanawa, represents the 900 strong Yawanawa tribe, the ‘People of the Wild Boar’ of Acre within the western Amazon rainforest of Brazil, an area recently decimated by terrible flooding. He is currently working for Survival International, the global movement for tribal peoples’ rights

Dr Friederike Otto is a senior researcher at the Environmental Change Institute, University of Oxford, leading the distributed volunteer computing project climateprediction.net. Her main research interest is the attribution of extreme weather events to external climate drivers. A major focus of this work is to explore the propagation of uncertainty from external drivers to actual impacts of climate change and assess associated risks.