Climate change was a hot topic of debate at the session, as it The drought is the worst in thirty years and its effects have spilled over into every aspect of human life. Lack of proper water and irrigation facilities has led to disease. Food production each year due to the adverse conditions is only half of what the country needs. Organizations such as Medicin sans Frontiers and Unicef have responded by providing humanitarian assistance in the form of food deliveries and food drops in the midst of a war torn region, but the attention toward water issues has somewhat necessarily taken a back seat. This can not remain the case for too long.

At the best of times, water is scarce, but now as the region enters its third continuous year of drought, water is almost impossible to find. The conditions have taken a direct toll on food supply. Most of the nations wheat crop has been lost and sheep, the countries main livestock have died by the thousands. The Taliban has attempted to relocate people to more verdant areas, but even the normally green Arganhab Valley has seen its fruit trees whither and die from lack of moisture.

The lack of water has daunted even the Kuchi nomads of the region who have become skilled at finding water in places where it does not seem possible. These nomads used to dig far into the earth to find natural water sources or move north to the mountains rivers where melting snow creates a fresh water source, but these are no longer options.

Of all the organizations currently providing humanitarian aid to the area, Oxfam is one of the few that addresses water as one of it's utmost concerns. In there approach to fighting the conditions in Afghanistan, they pledge to address the situation by providing food (wheat, pulses and oil) to those most desperately in need, by making water available through well digging and irrigation, by offering sanitation and hygiene advice and by distributing seeds to ensure that the wheat crop is planted in time for the next planting season. CARE has also contributed by digging or improving more than 2000 wells. All of these efforts have, of course, received most of their attention before the current war.

However, it is important to realize that the key to an environmentally self-sustaining Afghanistan must address the root of the problems and not the symptoms. Food will never grow in an area where crops receive no water and sheep cannot live without water to drink. Sanitation in increasingly populated and poverty stricken refugee camps will not improve with out the means to dispose properly of waste.

It is here on the road to Johannesburg that we can focus on one of the most important and frequently used words in connection with Agenda 21. That word is sustainable. To drop food packets, to provide much needed temporary shelter, these efforts are necessary, but they are not sustainable. If Afghanistan is to survive long after the world has turned its focus to the new subject du jour, we must help solve the problems that existed before the current war and the solutions that will make this country strong after it is long over. Providing Afghanistan with the assistance to solve its water problems is one of the ways this can be done. A world cannot live without water.