1. Water and Food Security Under Global Change

This chapter describes the implications of global change for water and food security, focusing on the precarious situation of the poor in global change processes. While overall economic growth is reaching an increasing number of poor, and education and income opportunities have increased tremendously in many parts of the (urban) developing world, new challenges in the water-for-food arena are set to tip the balance towards increased hunger and childhood malnutrition with often irreversible, life-long consequences, particularly in parts of sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, unless policy reforms and investments are urgently undertaken to ensure access to safe water and food under these global change processes. Key challenges whose outcomes need to be made more pro-poor include the global trade and finance regime, climate change, energy policy, investment policy, and foreign direct investment.