Critical global issues: Assignment

Running head: GLOBAL ISSUE 1
Addressing Global Issue of Water and Food Contamination
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

GLOBAL ISSUE 2
Addressing Global Issue of Water and Food Contamination
Contamination of food and water is a global issue that requires immediate attention
and intervention. According to World Health Organization (2019), over 2 billion people are
currently drinking water contaminated with faeces, causing 485,000 diarrhoeal death every
year and over 600 million people every day fall ill after intaking contaminated food, of which
420,000 people die every year. The serious risk posed by the use of contaminated water
includes polio, typhoid, dysentery, cholera and diarrhea and few consequences of intaking
contaminated food include diarrhoeal disease along with malnutrition (Sankhla et al., 2016).
This global issue is to be considered as a common good and every policymaker, government,
and other stakeholders should take efficient steps to address the problem.
The following sections of the paper will address the issue in context to the shared
responsibility of the common good not being realized and potential interventions to address
the issue.
Shared Responsibility
The global issue of the use of contaminated food and water by the people requires
attention from global stakeholders. It is the shared responsibility of the global community and
its members to safeguard their basic resources. However, this global issue is not receiving the
required political attention and putting a great threat to the people and their health. Even
though the issue has been persistent for a few decades now, the first International Food Safety
Conference was held in 2019, indicating how the global community does not realize the role
of shared responsibility in addressing the issue effectively (Godefroy et al., 2019). Ministers
from 130 countries attended the meeting and acknowledged the need for presenting key
actions to ensure access to safe food globally.
Remote regions of Australia are not effectively acknowledging the presence of deadly
heavy metals in their water sources and are drinking the same. Especially in the Aboriginal

GLOBAL ISSUE 3
communities in Northern Territory and Western Australia, contamination of water is a serious
issue, as a report from WA Auditor General reported the presence of nitrate in high amounts
above the safety levels in 2015 (Molino et al., 2019).
On a global scale, the majority of the countries present in the equatorial region of the
globe are facing an extremely high risk of water contamination. According to NRDC (2019),
the prime cause of water contamination is the dumping of untreated wastewater into water
bodies and states that by the year 2050, over one-third of the global population will be in
serious threat of not getting freshwater for drinking purpose. Moreover, the article also states
that every single nation in the world faces the problem of water contamination with
contaminants such as copper or arsenic, to some extent, and the only realization of the shared
responsibility could help the countries to address this issue.
Addressing the Issue
To address the issue of food and water contamination globally, the World Health
Organization puts greater emphasis on strengthened collaboration of the countries. On a
global scale, there is a dire need for each country to revise their investment and coordinate
more resources to reduce water and food contamination. To address the issue of food
contamination, changes in the food system is necessary, which would require the
implementation of novel food processing methods, technological advances, and globalization
of food production to connect the food systems and reduce the gap in the regulatory
responsibility.
Country-wise, multi-sectoral approaches including improvement of laboratory
capacities, regulatory legislation, disease surveillance and food & water monitoring
programmes are required. Every nation in the world can implement such an action plan with
the help of proper education and training of stakeholders, implementation of information
technologies and making use of shared information. In addition to this, every nation should