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"Did you know that 3,5 Million people die every year due to the lack of clean drinking water and proper water treatment?! On January the 1st 2013, the United Nations introduced the International Year of Water Cooperation. The access to clean water is a Human Right. Cutting the number of people without access to safe fresh water is one of the Millennium Development Goals. This high appreciation in international agreements has a reasons. Water is crucial for the development in many different sectors: For example, the agriculture sector, the health sector and sometimes even the security sector. How exactly do these relationships work and what are the main problems in the water sector?"

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia - In the hills to the east of Kuala Lumpur, the Klang River is clean enough for visitors to play in. But just a few hundred metres downstream, the water darkens and rubbish clogs the banks.

"Across much of Africa, cities are growing quickly. Current projections estimate that by 2050, 60 per cent of the population will be living in urban areas - half of them in slums. Many of these people have little access to services such as clean water and sanitation, and the UN has identified fixing this as a major priority."

"The heavily polluted Ganges in India needs a clean-up operation, but activists must honour the river's spiritual significance to succeed where others have failed"

Water crises in the Middle East are helping "radicalize" the region, according to VICE. The inaccessibility of clean drinking water, water scarcity, drought, and food insecurity all combine to "make communities vulnerable-especially to extremist groups.

As anyone who has done a survival course can tell you, we can survive weeks without food but only a matter of days without water. Of course, many of us are lucky enough to have water on tap, but according to the UN, only 42% of people in rural areas had access to clean water in 2004.