Securing Africa’s Future Water Needs

This transcript is from a CSIS event hosted on January 30, 2026. Watch the full video below.

Caitlin Welsh: Hello. I’m Caitlin Welsh, director of the CSIS Global Food and Water Security Program. In partnership with the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, I’m so pleased to welcome you to today’s event, “Securing Africa’s Future Water Needs.”

This event is the culmination of our research, led by CSIS Senior Fellow David Michel, on one of the most fundamental elements of human health, economic growth, and environmental resilience – that is, water security. Over the past year and a half, David and colleagues have evaluated the factors threatening water security in African communities and the multifaceted solutions to these challenges through research, interviews with other experts including those featured on our panel today, and field study in Ethiopia, Ghana, and Uganda. And David has broken down this very complex topic into a compelling interactive digital report which we are proud to launch today and which is now available in the event description online. We hope you’ll check it out.

To explain the findings of our research and the recommendations in his report, I’m pleased to introduce CSIS Senior Fellow David Michel. David, over to you.

David Michel: Thank you very much, Caitlin, and welcome to all of you this morning. We are going to dig into the challenges and strategies to building water resilience systems for sub-Saharan Africa, taking advantage of the launch of our new digital report to present some of our findings.

And with me today in the studio I am joined by Joel Kolker, who is now a senior affiliate, non-resident, with CSIS, but was formerly the global lead for the – water and finance in the World Bank water practice. And online we welcome Charity Osei-Amponsah, who is the senior regional researcher for governance, institutions, and inclusion at the International Water Management Institute; and Muyatwa Sitali, who is the acting chief executive officer of Sanitation and Water for All. Welcome to all three of you.

So let’s dig right into the issues that are so important to tackle today. Sub-Saharan Africa’s water systems are increasingly in crisis. From the Sahel to South Africa, some 845 million people lack safely-managed drinking water and over 900 million do not have access to safely-managed sanitation services. The consequences of this water security are severe. Inadequate water and sanitation services degrade public health, undermine food security, and sap economic growth. The African Union estimates the countries of sub-Saharan Africa lose a crushing 5 percent of their GDP annually due to scarce or contaminated water supplies and poor sanitation.

And pressures on the continent’s strained water systems are mounting. Water demands are growing. Water use in sub-Saharan Africa is climbing more quickly than anywhere else on Earth. Projections suggest that water use will soar 103 percent by midcentury across the region. Domestic water needs are anticipated to triple from 2010 to 2050. And water claims from industry and manufacturing are expected to skyrocket up to 700 percent.

Water resources are also shifting. As global temperatures warm, rainfall patterns across the continent have increasingly become irregular and erratic. Projections find that some areas may experience greater annual precipitation, but much of sub-Saharan Africa could see average yearly rainfall drop 10 to 20 percent. Extreme events and water-related disasters are also increasing. The frequency of droughts has tripled and flooding has surged more than tenfold in sub-Saharan Africa since the 1970s. Droughts dry up surface and groundwater sources, constricting available supplies; and floods can wash away infrastructure and overwhelm drainage and sewage systems, compromising service provision and contaminating water sources.

And water quality is worsening. Mounting pollution from expanding cities, agriculture, and industry are drastically degrading water quality in sub-Saharan Africa. Over half of the region’s population is now exposed to contaminated drinking water.

All told, sub-Saharan Africa is the world’s most water-insecure region. In 2023, a comprehensive global assessment by the United Nations ranked every country in the region water insecure to critically insecure.

Water-secure societies ensure that their populations have reliable access to adequate supplies of safe water to sustain human wellbeing and socioeconomic development. Ensuring water security in this landscape of increasing demands, shifting pressures, and unpredictable disruptions will require resilient approaches. Resilient water systems not only enable societies and systems to meet communities’ growing water needs, but they also help communities anticipate, adapt to, and recover from evolving shocks and stresses. With our guests here today, we’ll dig into the challenges and strategies for strengthening resilient water systems to secure sub-Saharan Africa’s water future.

So strengthening water-resilience systems is a complex and multifaceted question. We can think of it as bringing together or marshalling infrastructure; resources, including financial resources; information and data; and also institutions for decision-making. If we think of these four elements – infrastructure, investment, information, institutions – as the four pillars of building resilient water systems and sustainable water and sanitation services, I’d like to go right to the base of this question and talk about the foundations in which these four pillars need to be set and coordinated; the enabling environments of policies, regulatory frameworks, mobilization of resources, the enabling context that will work together to strengthen resilient water systems. And just go around the room, and start with Joel here in the – in the studio, and take us into the challenges and the strategies to support and cultivate those enabling environments.

Joel Kolker: Well, thanks, David, and thanks to CSIS and Hilton. And it’s nice to be joined by my old friends Sitali and Charity.

Look, it’s a complex issue, as you’ve laid out in the report. I think the four pillars address where we are. I think the challenge is going forward. And you’re right; it really is this competition between where we’ve been emphasizing infrastructure investment for the last 50 years as opposed to really touching on this enabling environment.

One of the challenges – we call this enabling environment a dozen different names. It’s systems change. Some people call it software enabling environment. And it’s confusing to people in its understanding. Basically, it is foundational and it’s very much around the efficiency of the operators.

And one of the things I liked about the report is you touched on water and sanitation, you touched on water resource management and irrigation, and that integrated approach is essential to this. But all the providers related to those three streams of water resources and water development need to be technically and financially efficient, and they need clear and transparent governance arrangements including a regulatory regime, and those governance arrangements need to be implemented with integrity.

And underpinning all of this we need a stable revenue stream, and too often we don’t have that. We’re still in a debate 60 years later whether we should have tariffs, fully recoverable tariffs; whether we need bigger tax resources. And without a stable revenue stream, we’re really not able to start attracting these issues, including the infrastructure – which needs to be done at the same time of these other aspects.

Thanks.

Mr. Michel: Thank you.

So, Charity, let me turn to you, then. Joel framed part of his remarks around integrated resources management coordinating these pillars so that they don’t become silos, but that work together to support resilient water systems. How do you see the strategies and the approaches that we need to cultivate these systemic approaches, the enabling environments that bring these elements of resilient water systems and sustainable water services together?

Charity Osei-Amponsah: Thank you so much, David, and hello to my colleagues in the panel.

I think that you have viewed it right. We really need to have that coherency so more of our focal points where we can really coordinate the issues. As it is now and as the report has shown, we have a lot of scattered policies, also regulatory frameworks across regions, across districts and communities, even across sectors. So harmonizing all these frameworks and policies is the key way to ensure that we have water and sanitation services for the people who really need it in sub-Saharan Africa.

That is what is required now instead of having even data in silos. Sectors are not speaking with each other. We do not know what information is held in the agricultural sector, what is in the energy sector. How do we ensure that we build even capacity for the people who are involved and also invest in training service providers around the infrastructure? So I will say that a synergetic effect where we are looking not only at the infrastructure, but also institutions, the data, everything together as one big piece is really the way to go now.

Thank you.

Mr. Michel: Thank you.

So, Sitali, if I could sharpen the question a little bit for you, and not to pigeonhole you, but the question is a little bit there in the name of your organization: Sanitation and Water for All. So, as we are working to strengthen resilient water systems and build these enabling environments, could we also talk a bit about how to ensure that our efforts do reach the most vulnerable populations, the marginalized communities, to realize the Sustainable Development Goals of safely-managed water services, safely-managed sanitation services for all?

Muyatwa Sitali: Yes. Thank you, David, and a true pleasure to be with colleagues – with Charity; with Joel, who we have – worked with us in the context of Sanitation and Water for All in the past.

This is a really fundamental question that you are asking, David: What’s the heart of the response to the problem that you laid at the beginning? What should be at the heart, or rather driving those actions, should be really an integrated approach that also looks at who is lacking the services and how can those people be reached. And that includes the last mile, as often called, so people in the – in the remote areas, people in industry but working in those industries and yet they do not have the services at home because they’re coming from a slum or they’re coming from a very urban area that might not be recognized and therefore they are unable to have the access to the services. So that really puts at the foundation of the question services for people; so water security for people, water security for agriculture, water security for several other key requirements in order for – to have a population that can contribute to economic growth.

So in the SWA, this is a critical component, looking at sanitation also, because that’s where even the numbers are much more dire. And so we need to do a lot at this – in these areas.

Now I would like to highlight just a few areas that I think are critical and perhaps that could also be additional to the report.

Number one is politics. We operate in a world where we cannot ignore the political economy in which the responses need to be taken, in which the data needs to be used for decision-making, and the interaction between political leaders and their publics and their – and their citizens. And SWA works a lot in this area, and we support this area to ensure that political decision-makers have got the right data and evidence. So thanks to your report, this would also be very helpful in this area. Last year in October we had a number of ministers, and as of this point we have 30 governments that have signed onto our High-Level Leaders Compact on Water Security and Resilience, where governments are really accepting and wanting to integrate policies, to integrate their financing, to integrate their leadership so that they can get even their heads of state to act in this area.

The second issue is when you do integration you’re really talking about reaching out to other colleagues within the water sector but that you may not have been talking to quite regularly, or even outside on climate, on other issues. And we need to take those deliberate steps to integrate, to speak to people we may not have been speaking to.

Third is accountability. When we identify a water change we need to take, we really need to be accountable. And that accountability is not only for one single actor; it’s for everybody who’s coming to the table to actually have a role.

And finally, delivery. As the GLASS report and others show us, 75 percent of countries that replied to the GLASS survey say that they have financing strategies, but much fewer than that are actually implementing what’s in those financing strategies. So this needs to go beyond paper on shelf; it needs to go into action so that there is actual delivery and leading to results on the ground.

Thank you so much.

Mr. Michel: Thank you.

And that structure leads me right into a question that I have been looking forward to asking Joel, and also capitalizing on the question is right there in the title of your former role, water and finance. And so Sitali was raising that question of financial responsibility, of financial accountability, utilizing the plans that many countries and communities have in place. And today we are facing a particularly constrained environment, reductions in development assistance, many countries laboring with debt burdens, looking to increasingly the public sector to help mobilize financial resources. But what are the examples that we have? Do we have models/lessons across the diversity of countries and communities in sub-Saharan Africa? And also bringing in an element of the – of the question to Sitali, that countries and communities in sub-Saharan Africa have diverse capacities, capabilities, resources, so what are approaches and options that we can use to wrestle with these questions?

Mr. Kolker: OK. You’ve just laid out a monthlong conference, but we won’t go there. Look, I think a couple key points to keep in mind.

This is about public- as well as private-sector money, so we’re never going to do away with the need for public resources. So let’s start with that. I’ll go back to the point I raised earlier: You need a stable revenue stream. And we don’t have that. We are still negotiating politically, as Sitali pointed out, whether we should be covering water services through full tariffs, through some kind of subsidy. But more importantly, our providers aren’t financially viable yet. And as you pointed out, the institutional environment has changed dramatically over the last 12 months. A lot of the African states were benefiting from donor support. A lot of that bilateral donor support has dried up, and this – the others have argued that the multilateral development banks are about to play a much – a much bigger role.

There is talk of a new initiative kind of patterned after the M300 in the energy sector looking at a large number of people being served in the water sector. The numbers are large. It’s going to be very difficult. But let’s be very clear: The numbers that are being talked about would only cover about 20 percent of those that you mentioned earlier who don’t have water and sanitation. So it’s great to be talking about service and dollars leveraged and households being served, but we have to go back to these initial points in your first question. Our governance arrangements need to be clear and transparent, whether it’s irrigation, whether it’s water resources, transboundary resources, or water or sanitation.

And likewise, we need very clear efforts around making these providers efficient so, ultimately, they’re viable, bankable, and – let’s be honest – creditworthy. And we don’t like to talk about that word, but that’s really critical. That’s why we didn’t receive a lot of additional resources during COVID, when washing your hands was really only one of the things you could do. And it’s something we haven’t tended to focus on because we’re very built – busy trying to build infrastructure. And the result of that is, without focusing on these foundational or service issues we design, we build, we neglect, and we have to rebuild this infrastructure, and this cycle can’t continue. And the MDBs are going to be quite critical in turning this around.

Mr. Michel: And political – policy decisions, political institutions, political choices, as Sitali evoked, are a key element of bringing these approaches to bear. And we are working at multiple levels of governance institutions – national authorities and ministries, community-based organizations, civil society, often regional authorities. And so, Charity, to you – and here again I’m utilizing your title as the basis of a question – governance, institution, inclusion; how can we work to support inclusive policymaking, transparent politics and decision-making, and inclusive institutions at these multiple levels of governance, but again bearing in mind the differing levels of resources and capacities and contexts across sub-Saharan Africa? There are conflict-affected countries and communities. There are states that are laboring under more or less severe debt burdens. So do we have places to look for examples/models of successful dialogues, collective action, community-building that can reach towards these objectives of inclusive governance and institutions?

Dr. Osei-Amponsah: Yeah. So, yeah, indeed, but it’s also a difficult thing to achieve collective action. The goal is to bring everybody that is relevant to the table, but you also know that normally we are having short-term planning cycles for projects and most of these water-security projects are very short term. You’re looking one year, two years. And also for political cycles, normally in sub-Saharan Africa most countries are having a four- to five-year cycle, and that will not help us to really put together a kind of sustainable plan to ensure that we are inclusive enough.

So this calls for really targeting who is vulnerable, who is marginalized, who needs to be at the decision-making table, what types of data do we need to be able to make the right decision. And that long-term planning is not going to be easy, but that is where we should be focusing on. At the community level, also at the district level, and trying to connect all the way from the community to national level policies, and trickling down the benefits back to the community. Also for just political issues across transboundary context, we need to ensure that we are having dialogues between the different countries, the trans-boundaries, to ensure that we are able to manage the conflicting interests for the issue – or, for their use of the water resources.

This is something that is pertinent, concerning also the fact that we are having a lot of conflicts, illegal mining. In the context of Ghana, for example, it’s cutting across the boundary with Ivory Coast. To understand how do we manage these issues if we are not able to come together at the table? And, again, and another thing to really look at, if we look at the financing aspect, is to be able to de-risk, for example, private sector funding or private sector capital, to ensure that they are able to also take up some of this burden from the public or from the government, because the financing models cannot only be through government. There has been some success. For example, in Ghana there is the UNICEF and the Denmark initiative trying to make water accessible for people within the upper east and upper west, which is the dry areas in Ghana. And this is working very, very much well. Yeah.

Mr. Michel: Thank you. So, digging into one of the challenges that you have raised around the short term timeframes of many initiatives, as well as the challenges of coordinating across levels of governance, across sectors, there are multiple initiatives, projects, pilots going on under the aegis of different authorities, funders, NGOs, foundations, state authorities. How can we capitalize on those pilots, on those experiences, as an element of both increasing coordination but also increasing the time horizons over which we are working? So not only scaling up successful or productive projects and examples, but continuing on carrying forward, expanding pilot projects and successful programs. So, Sitali, what have we – what have we learned about how we can learn to capitalize on those experiences as ways of developing a longer-term vision, expanding programming, capitalizing on pilot projects, and increasing the dialogue and the interactivity among different stakeholders? 

Mr. Sitali: Great. That’s a really fantastic question. So I think we’re in a process of constantly learning. And hopefully that learning is incremental. And I’ll give you a few components that I would like to touch on that topic. But before I do that, I wanted to – something Charity said that made me think of sharing. I think some of the potential sources of hope that we can see on the horizon. So the African Union has identified 2026 as the year of water, which is a really fundamental issue because it means that across the African continent this will be a part of a big conversation that governments will be having. In addition, or rather as a way to actually follow up in a very tangible way, they will be issuing a new Water Vision, which would take Africa into 2063.

Now you might say, well, what do these – what do these big pronouncements mean in reality? I think this is where the learning comes in. We have to learn from the last 25 years because that was when the last vision was prepared. What worked and what did not work? There were only a couple countries, a few – very few countries that actually achieved the Millennium Development Goal target on water on the African continent. What did those countries do? That’s what we need to learn. In some of those countries we see a very significant political mobilization. And then we also see some consistent processes for engaging multi-stakeholders, as well as engaging several institutions within government. For example, in Ethiopia with their One WASH National Program. That becomes quite a fundamental area as a platform for engaging a lot of countries. And Ethiopia’s work is one of the few countries where there was a consistent way to engage multiple stakeholders across different spectrum, including different government institutions.

The other aspect that I wanted to highlight, places where we are seeing some integrated approaches that would perhaps help in this area. Uganda, for example, which is one of the few countries that has actually prepared a national adaptation plan that also looks at water – rather, that is specific to water and sanitation. So we need to multiply, to capitalize on this momentum. Joel talked of the energy Mission 300, and perhaps a sister type of program that’s emerging within the water sector that the World Bank is working on, and also mobilizing several other partners around that. In Sanitation and Water for All we work with several institutions around what are called heads of state initiatives. In particular, the idea behind that is to bring the head of government or the head of state to work with the head of government or head of state for them, particularly in an area where they – where they have identified water and sanitation.

And by water here I don’t just mean drinking water. I also mean it could be water for agriculture. It could be water for other services. For as long as the head of state has identified it as a critical area. And it links with drinking water. Then they need to be supported to achieve that political ambition. And so we are working with a number of partners, the Netherlands government, the U.K. government, IRC, UNICEF, WaterAid, and several others, in supporting these types of heads of state initiatives. Ghana has one. And what we are seeing emerging in some of these countries is a serious resourcing, or rather a serious intention to also resource, but also expressing that in the national budget. South Sudan increased the national budget by 13 times after their head of state had signed – they had prepared this presidential compact on water.

So hopefully this political will that’s emerging should not be isolated, sort of, examples of progress. I hope that they can all be joined up through the Africa Water Vision, so that the entire continent can move forward and really change the landscape of the story that we began with at the beginning. Thank you so much.

Mr. Michel: And part of generating that political will and informing that vision is the knowledge and information about the challenges faced by communities and countries, and the possibilities of different approaches and strategies to meet these water security risks. And so I don’t – I want to be sure to also touch on that pillar of resilience, the information environment, and ask each of you about the needs and the gaps. I was looking at a graphic the other day that showed this dire plunge in the number of reporting weather stations across the African continent. Just one example. So if we are going to have a four legged table of the four pillars of water resilience strengthened and set in secure foundations, what are our information and data and knowledge needs?

Mr. Kolker: They’re huge. They’re important. But they have to have quality behind them. And that’s where we’ve often fallen down. I’ll give you a couple examples. We’ve spent tens of millions of dollars on smart meters. And yet, non-revenue water hasn’t been significantly impacted. I think another data source we need has to be some independence in it. We’re talking about money, both public and private, money. The Global North uses credit ratings, independent credit ratings, again, based with data, very viable, immediate integrity assumed there. Ministers of finance understand it better than anyone. Yet, we don’t use them in sub-Saharan Africa and other parts of emerging markets.

So we really need to think about how to prioritize this data. It can be very expensive, but we also have to make sure that we’re using that data very effectively. And when we look at new technology, a lot of that is based on investment resources. And if we don’t have quality data, we’re going to get in trouble. We’re better off getting quality than quantity in terms of data. And we have to be very strategic in terms of what we’re getting.

Mr. Michel: Charity, same question about the data information needs and gaps.

Dr. Osei-Amponsah: Yes. So I was smiling because I totally agree with you. We really need that, the information. But most importantly also to have a kind of, let’s say, a water data commons, a place where stakeholders – whether policymakers, industry players, researchers – can easily go to and get the information. Currently we have information on water scattered in several portals or databases. And it is good that we are able to have a common place where we can have data, low-cost access. And also with the infrastructure, again, most of the problems we are facing is low-quality installments. So you spend so much money, and, like you were saying, you put the meters, or you put sensors, and, like, six months, a year, it’s false, because it was of low quality at the beginning. And we have to go through that cycle over and over and over again.

And in most places this infrastructure is not decentralized. So you can have it at the district level, but you cannot really get it across communities. So, again, can we start to invest in maybe low cost Internet of Things-enabled sensors for real time monitoring, you know, so that we can be informed with the decisions that we make? Let me just give one example. For example, in many places across West Africa there is a lot of groundwater extraction in people’s homes because they cannot really wait for the supply from government to get water into their homes. So they take matters into their own hands, and build their wells, or they put water pumps at the back of their homes, and they are taking water from the ground. Where is the data on that? How much water do we have? How much are we taking? What is the quality? How do we even manage and regulate that? You know, these are issues that we really need to have, good data, quality data, easily accessible, to be able to make the right decisions, I think. Thank you.

Mr. Michel: Sitali.

Mr. Sitali: David, yeah, I wonder if I could throw in something in this, I think data, in the same way as budgets, policies, even the definition of institutions, they form part of the enabling environment. But what is crucial is also how are they used? And that is a behavioral issue. So it’s one thing to have a policy, and this is what I was saying at the beginning, sort of a paper on the shelf. So it’s one thing to have a policy. It’s one thing to have a very good data collection system. But if it’s not going to be used to influence decision making, then it’s – say, what’s its purpose? And so I think there has to be a really proper connection between the building blocks of a good enabling sector and the behaviors that enable these blocks to actually give you the results that you’re looking for.

I think we’ve seen some good examples from Nepal where they have a good information management system that feeds that information, not just to policymakers but also to political decisionmakers. And the potential for that is huge. I’ve also worked in countries where you stack the first set of mapping water points – you do that across the country. You bring the promise of we’re going to use mobile phones to be able to get this information in real time, and use it to change – to sort of map the results. And then one, two years down the line that’s not – that’s not working anymore. That system has been abandoned. So the setup cost really is huge, and then you don’t use it. So that’s really a loss. It’s sunken, sort of, resources.

So I think investment in the data is important, in the data collection process, data analysis. But also in the decision making, and how that data feeds into decision making, is really crucial. And that last part is a behavioral issue from across the different levels. It could be at local government, it could be at subnational level, national level. To be willing to be influenced by the knowledge is something that needs to be worked on. Thank you.

Mr. Michel: In that spirit, of applying knowledge and data, and then being willing to take onboard that new information and make use of it, let me conclude by asking each of you what are – or, what should we be watching, as 2026 is the year of water for Africa, as 2030 is the target year for realizing the Sustainable Development Goals? Are there innovations? Are there obstacles that we should be paying more attention to, or that we are missing? And what should we have our eye on to increase that knowledge base and make it usable? Sitali.

Mr. Sitali: Great. So I think that one of the things to watch is the inertia that might be there for people to remain in their silos. So those of us who’ve been working in water and sanitation and hygiene wanting to only focus on that, as opposed to really opening up to all these issues, to really have a truly integrated agenda. Because that’s what the next four years require. I am very, very much looking forward to how the political leaders are going to take on the Africa Union Water Vision, and how they’re going to translate that. How this is not going to be politics as usual. And very much looking forward to partners that are working in this area to actually turn this political interest into results. So those are the things that I’m looking for. How do we break the inertia? How do we tend the politics? How do we tend the opportunity we have of the Africa Water Vision so that it doesn’t become politics as usual? And then which partners are really keen to truly break the silos and actually chart forward an integrated agenda? And for SWA, we’re very much excited to work with everyone. Thank you.

Mr. Michel: Thank you. Charity, what should we be watching?

Dr. Osei-Amponsah: Yes. I think that for the African issues we should be watching the data issues. Once again, we should have an integrated infrastructure provision which data and institutional capacity strengthen. There is a lot out there already. At the International Water Management Institute we have developed a lot of tools and water portals, apps, decision support tools. And we are hoping to support this initiative with other organizations that are in this space of water.

Mr. Michel: Thank you.

Dr. Osei-Amponsah:

 Thank you.

Mr. Michel: Thank you. And to Joel, what should we be watching? What are we missing?

Mr. Kolker: So there’s a long list, but I would focus on two things. With the transformation going on in the development world, I think it’s going to be incredibly important this year to look at local leadership. We’re going to look back 12 months from now, where we’re going to see the most progress, I think, is where national and local officials, both elected and technical people, have stepped up and taken the leadership in addressing these issues. Because otherwise, I think we’re going to be flailing like we’ve been doing for a number of years.

Second change has got to be about where they’re putting their money. And this is not only their budgets, but also the money from the multilateral development banks. If that money continues to exclusively focus on infrastructure, I fear we’re not going to make the progress. But they need to put significant resources behind these enabling environment issues that we’ve been talking about, whether it’s their own resources or encouraging their financiers to put the money there. So that would be the two areas that I would focus on.

Mr. Michel: Well, thank you. Thank you all for your insights and for your inspiration. Water, I think, can be a unifying thread and a collective good, connecting sources and users, economies and ecologies, consumers and societies. So strengthening water resilience can reduce vulnerabilities to water risks and sustain livelihoods, secure economic development, and ensure societal wellbeing. I hope that our conversation here has helped to contribute to that, and that our work in this report has helped contribute to that. That we all need water, and water needs all of us too.

So I’d like to thank our panelists, Charity Osei-Amponsah, Muyatwa Sitali, and Joel Kolker; to thank the studio team and the Global Food and Water Security team here at CSIS, who have made this work possible; and also to thank the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation for their support in making this work possible. And, finally, thank you to all of you for joining us, and we look forward to connecting with you and working with you in the future.

You can find us online at www.CSIS.org. And the new digital report is now live and available online, and in the description of this event online. Thank you very much.

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