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Face aux pluies diluviennes qui se sont abattues sur plusieurs régions du pays, le ministère de l’Intérieur a annoncé le déploiement d’un dispositif de crise […]

L’article Cellules de crise, numéros d’urgence… l’État active le plan ORSEC face au déchaînement des eaux est apparu en premier sur .

L’accès au financement reste l’un des principaux défis pour les petites et moyennes entreprises en Algérie. Face à cette situation, une nouvelle initiative vient renforcer […]

L’article Accès au crédit en Algérie : ce que change la nouvelle convention bancaire signée à Alger est apparu en premier sur .

The Commission proposal, presented on Wednesday, includes spectrum harmonisation measures and an EU numbering scheme to support pan-EU business telecoms services

For the last twenty years, Sarah Nyaga, a smallholder farmer from Embu County in central Kenya, has farmed coffee. Like most across Kenya, she relies on the export market. A greater percentage of Kenya’s coffee ends up within the European Union market, but a new law threatens to disrupt what has been a source of […]

The European Commission will present its proposal for the "Global Europe" Regulation, guiding the EU's external action for the next Multi-Annual Financial Framework period 2028-2034. Four Commissioners (Jozef Síkela, International Partnerships, Marta Kos, Enlargement, Dubravka Šuica, Mediterranean and Hadja Lahbib, Equality, Preparedness and Crisis Management) will discuss the proposal with MEPs, in a joint session of the AFET and DEVE Committees.
The "Global Europe" proposal is the successor of the current NDICI-Global Europe instrument and is supposed to enter into force as of January 2028. It seeks to ensure a more strategic approach, in line with the objectives of the EU's internal policies, while taking on board EU and partner countries' mutual interests. It deeply restructures the EU's external financing architecture, introducing a new system of geographic pillars, a global pillar, and a flexible 'cushion'. The new instrument integrates several existing ones covering development cooperation, pre-accession support and humanitarian aid. Current spending targets and thematic programmes would be removed in favour of broader indicative commitments. The proposal aims to increase responsiveness to crises and geopolitical challenges. It also significantly expands the Commission's discretion over spending, with implications on transparency, predictability and Parliament oversight.
Global Europe - 2025/0227(COD)
Global Europe instrument - EPRS briefing
Source : © European Union, 2026 - EP

In today's edition: Contraception, Mercosur, and WHO

Le président colombien a indiqué avoir également partagé des informations avec Trump concernant le trafic de drogue dans son pays. Ils prévoient de se rencontrer à la Maison-Blanche.

Lead author Prof. Kaveh Madani
 
Flagship report calls for fundamental reset of global water agenda as irreversible damage pushes many basins beyond recovery.

By UN University’s Institute for Water, Environment and Health
UNITED NATIONS, Jan 21 2026 (IPS)

The world is already in the state of “water bankruptcy”. In many basins and aquifers, long-term overuse and degradation mean that past hydrological and ecological baselines cannot realistically be restored.

While not every basin or country is water-bankrupt, enough critical systems around the world have crossed these thresholds, and are interconnected through trade, migration, climate feedbacks, and geopolitical dependencies, that the global risk landscape is now fundamentally altered.

The familiar language of “water stress” and “water crisis” is no longer adequate. Stress describes high pressure that is still reversible. Crisis describes acute, time-bound shocks. Water bankruptcy must be recognized as a distinct post-crisis state, where accumulated damage and overshoot have undermined the system’s capacity to recover.

A group of women fetching water from a dam in Taha, Northern Region of Ghana. Credit: Evans Ahorsu. Source: UN University’s Institute for Water, Environment and Health

Water bankruptcy management must address insolvency and irreversibility. Unlike financial bankruptcy management, which deals only with insolvency, managing water bankruptcy is concerned with rebalancing demand and supply under conditions where returning to baseline conditions is no longer possible.

Anthropogenic drought is central to the world’s new water reality. Drought and water shortage are increasingly driven by human activities, over-allocation, groundwater depletion, land and soil degradation, deforestation, pollution, and climate change, rather than natural variability alone. Water bankruptcy is the outcome of long-term anthropogenic drought, not just bad luck with hydrological anomalies.

Water bankruptcy is about both quantity and quality. Declining stocks, polluted rivers, and degrading aquifers, and salinized soils mean that the truly usable fraction of available water is shrinking, even where total volumes may appear stable.

Managing water bankruptcy requires a shift from crisis management to bankruptcy management. The priority is no longer to “get back to normal”, but to prevent further irreversible damage, rebalance rights and claims within degraded carrying capacities, transform water-intensive sectors and development models, and support just transitions for those most affected.

Governance institutions must protect both water and its underlying natural capital. The existing institutions focus on protecting water as a good or service disregarding the natural capital that makes water available in the first place. Efforts to protect a product are ineffective when the processes that produce it are disrupted.

Recognizing water bankruptcy calls for developing legal and governance institutions that can effectively protect not only water but also the hydrological cycle and natural capital that make its production possible.

Water bankruptcy is a justice and security issue. The costs of overshoot and irreversibility fall disproportionately on smallholder farmers, rural and Indigenous communities, informal urban residents, women, youth, and downstream users, while benefits have often accrued to more powerful actors. How societies manage water bankruptcy will shape social cohesion, political stability, and peace.

Water bankruptcy management combines mitigation with adaptation. While water crisis management paradigms seek to return the system to normal conditions through mitigation efforts only, water bankruptcy management focuses on restoring what is possible and preventing further damages through mitigation combined with adaptation to new normals and constraints.

Water can serve as a bridge in a fragmented world. Water can align national priorities with international priorities and improve cooperation between and within nations. Roughly 70% of global freshwater withdrawals are used for agriculture, much of it by farmers in the Global South. Elevating water in global policy debates can help rebuild trust between South and North but also within nations, between rural and urban, left and right constituencies.

Water must be recognized as an upstream sector. Most national and international policy agendas treat water as a downstream impact sector where investments are focused on mitigating the imposed problems and externalities. The world must recognize water as an upstream opportunity sector where investments have long-term benefits for peace, stability, security, equity, economy, health, and the environment.

Water is an effective medium to fulfill the global environmental agenda. Investments in addressing water bankruptcy deliver major co-benefits for the global efforts to address its environmental problems while addressing the national security concerns of the UN member states.

Elevating water in the global policy agenda can renew international cooperation, increase the efficiency of environmental investments, and reaccelerate the halted progress of the three Rio Conventions to address climate change, biodiversity loss, and desertification.

A new global water agenda is urgently needed. Existing agendas and conventional water policies, focused mainly on WASH, incremental efficiency gains and generic IWRM guidelines, are not sufficient for the world’s current water reality. A fresh water agenda must be developed that takes Global Water Bankruptcy as a starting point and uses the 2026 and 2028 UN Water Conferences, the conclusion of the Water Action Decade in 2028, and the 2030 SDG 6 timeline as milestones for resetting how the world understands and governs water.

Global Water Bankruptcy: Living Beyond Our Hydrological Means in the Post-Crisis Era | UN University Institute for Water, Environment and Health (UNU-INWEH) (20 January) (press release)

Support Paper
Madani K. (2026) Water Bankruptcy: The Formal Definition, Water Resources Management, 40 (78) doi: 10.1007/s11269-025-04484-0)

IPS UN Bureau

 

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In today's edition: Mercosur, tariffs, pesticides

Für die Erbschaftsteuerreform sollten Steuerprivilegien abgeschafft, höhere Lebensfreibeträge eingeführt und Steuertarife vereinfacht werden – Dadurch würden Belastungen gerechter verteilt – Trotz deutlich weniger Steuerpflichtigen entstünden Mehreinnahmen von 2,3 Milliarden Euro – Übergangsregelung ...

Zelenskyy suggested he would skip the ongoing World Economic Forum in Switzerland to deal with the aftermath of the strike

"Middle powers must act together, because if we're not at the table, we're on the menu," Carney said

Les flux internationaux reprennent de la vigueur après plusieurs années de perturbations. Résultat : lle voyage sans visa s’affirme comme l’un des leviers majeurs de […]

L’article Voyager sans visa depuis l’Algérie : ces destinations où le divertissement fait partie du séjour est apparu en premier sur .

Wednesday 21 January

Source : © European Union, 2026 - EP

Wednesday 21 January

Source : © European Union, 2026 - EP

Wednesday 21 January

Source : © European Union, 2026 - EP

Wednesday 21 January

Source : © European Union, 2026 - EP

The decision is not related to the dispute over the future of the autonomous Danish territory of Greenland, the fund said

In today's edition: Virkkunen's Grok warning, Cybersecurity revision, Vdl adopts 'EU Inc' rhetoric

Le président bulgare quitte son poste. Rumen Radev a annoncé lundi 19 qu'il démissionnait et se lançait dans dans la course pour les législatives anticipées du printemps. La Constitution interdit effectivement au président de jouer un rôle direct dans la vie politique.

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