Everyone Deserves A Chance.

"With 20 percent of the world’s population but just 7 percent of its available freshwater, China faces serious water shortages as its economy booms and urbanization increases. The government is planning massive water diversion projects, but environmentalists say conservation — especially in the wasteful agricultural sector — is the key.

Currently the greatest culprit of water waste in China is the agricultural sector, which accounts for more than two-thirds of all water use. Yet up to 45 percent of that water disappears before it reaches farmers — evaporating off the surface of open canals, seeping into the dirt walls of poorly constructed rural diversions, or being literally skimmed off the top by any number of unaccounted-for water users, according to research by Christine Boyle, a recent Fulbright fellow at the Chinese Academy of Science’s Center for Chinese Agricultural Policy. She points out that when it comes to water management in China, “there are a lot of moving parts, but not a lot of oversight.”

The reasons for such water waste include poor rural infrastructure (every village or district is responsible for maintaining its irrigation infrastructure, and some have little money for repairs); lack of coordination between governing bodies; and lack of measurements or accountability to tell where, precisely, water is being lost.

Recognizing the problem is the first step to fixing it. As Professor Wang told me in Beijing, “First we have to change people’s minds – then our systems.”

This article shows just how much rural areas in China need infrastructure and investment, rather than trying to keep up with the rapid pace of urbanization and migration, more needs to be improved in the countryside to encourage people to stay. For many of Wokai's loan recipients, loan capital to start up their own enterprises is the solution to their family's poverty and enables them to stay in their hometown rather than migrate to do hard labour in cities. As we see, the more money that remains in rural agricultural districts, coupled with better accountability between governing bodies, the closer we will be to better irrigation infrastructure and closing the water shortage problem.