Living Beyond Borders Newsletters

What We’re Watching: Three ways to address inflation … with varying degrees of success

Erdonomics: Growth > stability

Turkey has long had a hyperinflation problem, but that doesn’t mean that its central bank has sought to raise interest rates to bring prices down. In fact, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose unorthodox economic approach has been dubbed Erdonomics, has even sought to lower interest rates during inflationary times. Why?

Central to his approach is the belief that economic growth trumps all, including price stability. So Turkey’s central bank has been unwilling to raise interest rates to reverse hyperinflation, and Erdogan has even called himself an “enemy” of interest rates.

As the Turkish president explains it, keeping interest rates low – and static – stimulates demand, driving economic growth.

But that hasn’t panned out. Inflation in Turkey soared to a quarter-century high of 85% in October – largely due to roaring food and fuel prices. Crucially, analysts think the official number was closer to 186%, meaning prices would have almost tripled. As a result, the average Turk has far less disposable cash to inject into the economy. What’s more, Turkey has seen its currency, the lira, plummet a whopping 90% since 2008.

What do Turks think of the cost-of-living crunch? They will get to weigh in on May 14, when the country heads to the polls. Erdogan is facing a united opposition that has been pushing the message that he has wrecked the economy.

Price controls and unintended consequences

Inflation = prices going up. But what if they just … didn’t?

That’s basically the thought process behind price controls, an alternative tactic for fighting inflation where the government mandates maximum prices for goods. While this might sound good, price controls remove the magical balance of supply and demand: When something is expensive, it signals to producers that they can profit by increasing supply. But if the government artificially holds down prices, producers aren’t incentivized to meet demand, which leads to supply shortages, inefficiencies, and unintended consequences.

Most economists believe that monetary policies can tame inflation without capping prices. But with inflation now running rampant, some left-wing policymakers and economists are revisiting the idea. In 2022, US Sen. Elizabeth Warren proposed a bill to outlaw “abusive price gauging” during market shocks. Progressives argue that price caps help the poor, but there’s a catch.

The thing about price controls is that they tend to work in the beginning. In 1971, President Richard Nixon tried to nip inflation in the bud by implementing a 90-day freeze on most wages, prices, and rents. The result: Inflation fell by 50% ... at first. But as soon as the government eased restrictions, prices shot back up, requiring another round of caps that barely made a dent. The takeaway: Price controls might help in the short run, but not in the long run.

Argentina has long been addicted to using price controls for political gain. In late 2021, after an electoral loss attributed to 53% inflation, the ruling party slapped price controls on over 1,400 products. But like the last time the government did this in 2013, it’s only making inflation worse — currently over 100% year-on-year.

The historical upshot of price controls: When the precise balance of supply and demand is replaced by the blunt axe of government policy, the solution is more likely than not to be worse than the problem.

The Goldilocks approach to adjusting interest rates

Western central banks are, broadly speaking, focused on two key things: Keeping inflation down and employment up. To strike the right balance, and, like Goldilocks, ensure that the economy is neither too hot nor too cold, many central banks adjust interest rates to prevent the economy from overheating.

Given the inflationary pressures of the past year – as a result of the war in Ukraine, supply chain kinks, and pandemic stimulus – the US Federal Reserve, European Central Bank, Bank of England, Bank of Canada, and others, have aggressively raised interest rates to increase the cost of credit within their respective economies.

While interest-rate policy aims to keep consumer prices steady (global food prices, in particular, have soared), central banks’ policies also influence – and are influenced by – financial behaviors.

For example, market turmoil in the US in recent times has tampered with investors’ appetite for risk. This has partly contributed to mass layoffs in the tech sector, something the Fed is watching closely as it adapts its interest-rate policy.

But not all wealthy countries are adopting this approach. For instance, the Bank of Japan, which has long focused on keeping interest rates low to stimulate growth, has left interest rates at - 0.1%, leading to stubbornly high prices for consumers.

__________________________________

Not everyone hates inflation – just ask the dinosaur skeletons

Rising prices are a headache for most people, but not everyone is unhappy. People who have low fixed-rate mortgages or other fixed-cost debts, for example, actually get a break from inflation, because it has the effect of reducing the burden of repaying or servicing what they’ve borrowed. Paying what they owe costs less because the currency has lost value compared to when they took out the mortgage.

Meanwhile, there are folks who hold assets that tend to rise in value when inflation goes up, such as stocks in energy or food production companies. Another is gold, which generally rises in value during bouts of inflation because it’s seen as a more stable store of value — after all, it’s been used as money for 2,500 years.

But the most colorful beneficiaries of inflation may be hoarders or other collectors of items like Rolex watches, fine art, classic cars, designer handbags, sports memorabilia, fine wines, and even dinosaur skeletons!

As inflation drives down the value of money, people invest in items like these, which are seen to hold value more predictably than cash. Not everyone has access to a fine wine cellar or a classic car garage, but surely you’ve got an unexpected inflation hedge lurking in some old shoebox somewhere, don’t you?

Tell us what you collect/hoard for rainy days here.

The Graphic Truth

For months, we've been debating the odds of a looming inflation-fueled US recession. It hasn't happened yet — in no small part due to a tight jobs market. (For more on who makes the recession call, read our primer here.)

But the fact that it hasn't happened yet doesn't mean recession fears are over. In fact, economists believe it'll start as soon as cash-strapped businesses — faced with high interest rates to fight inflation — begin giving workers pink slips across the board. Still, it's more likely than not that when it comes, the recession will be not only mild (not triggering mass unemployment) but also historically short.

We take a look at the duration and cause of US recessions over the past century.

Staving off default: How unsustainable debt is threatening human progress

At last week’s World Bank/IMF Spring Meetings, GZERO Media spoke with Navid Hanif, assistant secretary-general for economic development at the UN, about the fact that three-fifths of the lowest-income countries in the world are debt distressed and in danger of default.

Hanif explains how a financial divide will eventually become a development divide, which is not good for the world. While stressing the urgency of the growing debt problem, Hanif also expresses optimism about the potential for post-pandemic progress, citing the growth of internet access and a renewed commitment to climate goals.

Watch the interview here.

Hard Numbers: World inflation champs, hyperinflation history, device deflation, how much do you spend on food?

538: What country currently has the highest annual inflation rate in the world? Crisis-wracked Lebanon (190%) is up there, and so too are the perpetually mismanaged economies of Argentina (103%) and Zimbabwe (92%). But at the moment, independent economists say Venezuela’s annualized price growth is running at a dizzying 538%. A combination of overspending and a plummeting currency is to blame.

143: You’ve probably heard about the quadrillion percent inflation that took hold in post-World War II Hungary, an episode generally regarded as the worst example of hyperinflation in modern history. But the one that started it all was in France more than 150 years earlier, when in the months after the French Revolution, inflation hit 143%. Let them eat cake, indeed.

24: Is anything getting cheaper these days? Yes! It’s in your hand/pocket/purse! According to the latest US Consumer Price Index report, which tracked prices through February, the item that has shown the biggest price drop is … smartphones, which cost 24% less than a year ago.

Podcast: Recession or not?

In the latest episode of Living Beyond Borders, a podcast produced in partnership between GZERO Media and Citi Global Wealth Investments, Eurasia Group’s Rob Kahn has a frank discussion with Charlie Reinhard, head of Citi’s Investment Strategy for North America, about the state of the economy and unemployment. They dive into the sticky rates of inflation, what the Federal Reserve is going to do about it, and what kind of recession – if any – investors should expect.

Listen here.

What geopolitics stories could still blow up the global economy?

Investors hate uncertainty. For now, most of them are trying to understand how central bankers, particularly at the US Federal Reserve, will calibrate changes in interest rates to slow inflation while avoiding recession.

But there are also three big geopolitical stories that will generate plenty more questions throughout 2023.

Russia’s war

After more than a year of war following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, two realities have emerged. Russia’s military isn’t strong enough to conquer Ukraine, but it is probably strong enough to prevent a complete Ukrainian victory. The war has now settled into a stalemate that continues to put upward pressure on energy prices and threaten further surges in food prices. (The current deal to allow grain exports through the Black Sea expires on March 18.)

To some extent, the consensus expectation for a war that lasts beyond 2023 will allow producers and companies to adjust their supply chains to new realities, to make alternative arrangements for diminished supplies of oil, gas, grain, and other commodities, and to find new trade partners.

But wars create surprises, and Russia’s inability to win the war leaves its leaders to think up creative new ways to punish Ukraine and its backers, with attacks in cyberspace, on pipelines, or on fiber optic cables, for example, adding wildcards to a deck already stacked against a predictable economic recovery from COVID.

China’s rebound?

In a time of war and global economic uncertainty, China poses a long list of questions. After all its extended COVID lockdowns, can Chinese leaders jumpstart China’s own economic growth to inject new fuel into global commerce? The relatively modest growth target the Chinese leadership recently announced generates optimism that Beijing has a realistic understanding of the risks in pushing too hard too quickly on state spending and loose lending. Has China finally cleared its COVID hurdles? There’s a lot of optimism on that front. Will US-China relations continue to deteriorate? If Washington decides that Xi Jinping’s government is trying to boost Russia’s odds of winning the war, that’s a safe bet.

Iran in flux

Two weeks ago, a senior US Defense Department official issued a startling warning. “Back in 2018,” he said, “when the [Trump] administration decided to leave the JCPOA, it would have taken Iran about 12 months to produce one bomb's worth of fissile material. Now it would take about 12 days.” That followed news in February that the International Atomic Energy Agency charged with monitoring Iranian nuclear facilities had reported finding small quantities of uranium enriched at 84%. (Enrichment at 90% can produce a nuclear weapon.)

This is a country preparing for its first transition of supreme leadership in more than 30 years, given Ali Khamenei’s advancing age and declining health. (He’ll be 84 next month.) It has faced widespread protests. The unrest seems to have died down for the moment, but given how abruptly the upheaval began, some new and equally unexpected trigger could start the cycle of demonstrations all over again. And Iran’s willingness to provide Russia with drones for use against Ukraine has newly antagonized Europeans as well as Americans.

There are fears in Israel that only an attack on Iran can prevent the development of a nuclear weapon. What’s more, many say that the recent restoration of ties between Iran and Saudi Arabia, brokered by China, is yet another sign of the deepening rift between Washington and Riyadh. Taken together, this all suggests there is constant wrangling in the heart of the world's main oil-producing region, where the US holds limited leverage.

In all these cases – Russia’s war, China’s rebound, and Iran’s flux – we have risks that are reasonably well understood. None is guaranteed to create a new and unforeseen crisis, but all of them bear careful watch through 2023 and beyond.

What We’re Watching: Grain deal deadline, tech layoffs, interest rate ripples

Will the Black Sea grain deal be renewed?

Amid growing concern that Russia may refuse to renew a deal to allow food and fertilizer shipments to travel through a safe passage in the Black Sea, UN Secretary-General António Guterres this week visited Kyiv, where he called for the renewal of the agreement, which is set to lapse on March 18. Quick recap: The grain deal, negotiated by Turkey, the UN, Russia, and Ukraine, was implemented in the summer of 2022 in a bid to free up 20 million tons of grain stuck at Ukrainian ports due to Russia’s blockade. You’ll likely remember that the two states are both huge exporters of wheat, while Russia is also the global fertilizer king. Indeed, the deal has helped alleviate a global food crisis that was hitting import-reliant Africa particularly hard, and driving up global food prices. Kyiv, for its part, says that if the deal is expanded to additional ports it could export at least some of the 30 million tons of grain that remain stuck. The Kremlin hasn’t said what its plans are but this week accused the West of “shamelessly burying" the Black Sea deal in what could be used as a pretext for its refusal to play ball.

For more on what Guterres has to say about the ongoing war in Ukraine and its human toll, check out his interview with Ian Bremmer on GZERO World.

What should we make of the great tech implosion?

We’ve heard a lot about a downturn in the tech sector in recent months after giants including Amazon, Microsoft, Meta, Salesforce, Alphabet, and Spotify laid off large chunks of their workforces. All in all, an estimated 200,000 US tech workers have been shown the door since the start of 2022 – more than the equivalent of the entire Apple workforce. At the same time, however, unemployment in the US remains at record lows, with the US adding more than 311,000 new jobs in February alone, yet another sign of the labor market's resilience. So what does – and doesn’t – the great tech debacle tell us about the current state of the global economy? First, COVID was a boon for the tech sector. As the world shut down, tech companies made the most of increased demand for work/play/eat-from-home services and embarked on massive hiring sprees. Alphabet, for example, increased its workforce by 16% between 2020-2021. But as soon as things reopened, it became clear that consumers wanted to go back to exercising in sweaty gyms and dining at overpriced ramen bars. Demand plummeted. What’s more, rising interest rates – an effort to tackle runaway inflation – and a dizzying stock market are making it harder for tech companies to raise capital and putting downward pressure on stock prices, leading to massive cost-cutting measures. Crucially, analysts warn that things will get worse before they get better.

A mountain of interest rate-driven debt

The Graphic Truth

As the war in Ukraine lingers and pandemic aftershocks continue to pound the global economy, food inflation remains sky-high throughout much of the world. Consider that over the past year alone, egg prices in the US rose by a whopping 60% on average. While prices of some food staples have dropped in recent months, partly due to the Black Sea grain deal, stubborn inflation driving up transport and labor costs means that consumers aren’t feeling prices ease at the supermarket. We take a look at food inflation in select countries now compared to a year ago, exactly one month after Russia invaded Ukraine.

Hard Numbers: Beijing underpromises, Russia slips sanctions, sunlight helps to grow US jobs, oil prices in perspective

32: Beijing’s new 2023 GDP growth target of “around 5%” is the country’s lowest in 32 years. The last time the Chinese Communist Party hedged this much, the Soviet Union was still around and a little-known band from Seattle had just released a record called “Nevermind.”

2.2: Despite the most comprehensive Western sanctions ever placed on its economy, Russia’s GDP shrunk just 2.2% last year, defying hopes and predictions of a much larger collapse. Why? Europe and the US were reluctant to sanction Russian energy exports too harshly, and Asian buyers were more than happy to buy up what the West wouldn’t.

126,000: Nearly a quarter of new jobs added by the US in January were a direct result of … the weather. An analysis by Morgan Stanley found that sunny skies heated up hiring in the world’s largest economy, creating an additional 126,000 jobs in the first month of the year.

Podcast: Should I ​STILL be worried?

“The equivalent of what we spent in World War II was spent in the course of a year and a half to support the US economy, and that had global impacts,” says David Bailin, chief investment officer and global head of investments at Citi Global Wealth. “All of that was rolled out with incredible speed and effectiveness. And the hangover effects from that … are very, very significant,” Bailin explains on the latest episode of Living Beyond Borders, a podcast from Citi Global Wealth Investments and GZERO Media.

Bailin and Eurasia Group President Ian Bremmer, together with moderator Shari Friedman, discuss the state and future of the global economy amid the war in Ukraine. While 2023 will see slow growth, Bailin says, this resetting period will lead to significant opportunities for global growth in 2024 and beyond.

Can you get by with a little help from your friends?

The pandemic inflicted a huge shock on supply chains, but there is another force at work remapping global trade flows too: the deepening ideological divide between the US and China, framed in Washington as a broader competition between democracies and autocracies.

The so-called “de-coupling” between the world’s two largest economies began during the presidency of Donald Trump, who slapped tariffs on China in a largely unsuccessful attempt to address the real harms that offshoring has done to some US workers.

US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen recently touted the benefits of so-called “friendshoring” on a visit to South Korea, which is trying to lure American supply chains away from China and to start making more microchips itself. Southeast Asian manufacturing powerhouses like Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand, and Indonesia are also keen to continue capitalizing as “friends” of the US.

Friendshoring may offer certain protections in a world of deepening ideological competition, but there are tradeoffs: “friendly” countries may not always produce goods as cheaply or efficiently, meaning that consumers may have to accept higher prices, particularly in the short term. Is the tradeoff of greater security in exchange for less efficiency worth it? More to the point, is it now unavoidable?

Shortages reach far beyond food

The war in Ukraine is just the latest crisis to befall global supply chains in recent years, and it appears likely to get worse before it finally eases. It’s not just about interrupted flows, shortages, and higher prices for food and fuel. According to a report published in May 2022 by Dun & Bradstreet, a total of at least 615,000 businesses operating globally depend on supplies from either Russia or Ukraine. About 90% of those firms are based in the United States, but supply chains in Europe, China, Canada, Australia, and Brazil are heavily impacted. According to the report, a total of 25 countries have a high dependency on Russia and Ukraine for a variety of commodities.

Five months into the war, it’s clear that the likeliest outcome of the current fighting will be a long-term stalemate. Russia doesn’t appear militarily strong enough to take and hold all of Ukraine, and Ukraine doesn’t appear strong enough to drive Russian troops completely off Ukrainian land. As a result, those who depend on resources and production inputs from Russia and Ukraine now know they’ll likely need to invest in new suppliers of hundreds of different commodities and products – from sunflower seeds to turbojets – to build better resilience into their supply chains, rather than simply waiting for the fighting to end.

The Graphic Truth

The pandemic sent global supply chains into a tizzy. Then, just as economies were embarking on their post-COVID economic recoveries, Russia invaded Ukraine, upending the global grain trade and sending supply chains spiraling further. Supply chain frictions have a lot of unintended consequences: Brexit-related supply chain issues made it hard for some Brits to get their hands on a pint of beer, while China’s punitive zero-COVID policy drove the auto industry – among others – into a full-blown crisis. We take a look at the Global Supply Chain Index from 2000-2022 along with key global economic milestones.

What We're Watching: Truckers wanted & not-so-cheap chips

Where are all the truck drivers?

The global truck driver shortage has been disrupting already-out-of-whack supply chains, particularly in the US, the European Union, and Britain – further complicating their post-pandemic economic recoveries. Last year, the American Truckers Association said it was around 80,000 drivers short, while in Europe, a deficit of 40,000 truckers has contributed to long waits and empty shelves. What’s going on? The pandemic has upended the way we work. Trucking is an arduous and ungratifying gig: Drivers often spend days or weeks far away from home, and they don’t get paid for hours spent waiting for goods to be loaded and unloaded. The road can be grueling, the compensation is underwhelming, and the benefits are often … nonexistent. In the US, trucking salaries have plunged in recent decades. Median wages for truck drivers in 1980 were about $110,000 annually (adjusted for inflation); in 2020, they were just $47,130. Unsurprisingly, many truckers are opting for jobs with better conditions and pay, so trucking firms in Europe and the US are struggling to lure drivers back to work and recruit new staff. It’s particularly grim in the UK, where supply-side frictions have been exacerbated by Brexit. In the US, meanwhile, companies like Walmart are fighting back by offering massive salary hikes to attract truck drivers. Will it get the wheels turning?

Chipping away at supply chains

The US Congress this week passed the behemoth Chips and Science Act, which ponies up $52 billion in subsidies and incentives to boost domestic production of semiconductors, the invisibly thin microchips that are essential for everything from phones, cars, and factories, to fighter jets, cruise missiles, and artificial intelligence. With the bill, Congress is making a big move in a new global “Chips race” for dominance of the industry: the EU is now spending close to $50 billion on the same thing, and China, which still depends on the US and its allies for inputs into its home-grown chips, has poured hundreds of billions into someday becoming a semiconductor superpower itself. For all three of the world’s largest economies, the concern is the same: the semiconductor market is highly concentrated, particularly in Taiwan, which produces more than 60% of the world’s chips. That’s a problem commercially – in 2021, there was a global shortage after tech firms gobbled up the entire supply, leaving automakers scrambling for chips. But it’s also a problem geopolitically. China doesn’t want to be dependent on chips from a Taiwan that’s allied with the US, while the US and EU don’t want to rely on a Taiwan that could be taken over by China any year now. Critics of the Chips act say its a sop to powerful tech companies that can well afford to build their own factories, and there are questions about whether the money will be spent on the right things: making the chips is one thing, cutting edge R&D is a whole other bowl of chips, and the supply chain for a single chip can pass through many countries before final assembly. As a cautionary tale: the EU aimed in 2013 to double its share of global semiconductor production to 20% by 2020. It didn’t work.

Future-proofing: How we fix broken supply chains

“Envision supply chains like a strand of Christmas lights. If one light goes out, then the whole strand will stop working.” So says Eurasia Group’s Christina Huguet on the latest episode of the Living Beyond Borders podcast, which focuses on the moments those lights went out: when the pandemic hit shipping, manufacturing, and labor all at once. Huguet, along with moderator Shari Friedman, Eurasia Group’s Managing Director of Climate and Sustainability, and David Bailin, Chief Investment Officer and Global Head of Investments at Citi Global Wealth, look at what it will take more than two years later to turn those lights back on and create more resilient global supply chains.

Listen here.

Hard Numbers: The scarcity edition

2 million: As the war in Ukraine rages on, the African continent is facing a shortfall of around 2 million metric tons of fertilizer that’s causing an unprecedented loss in food production throughout the continent. A Senegalese official warned at a recent G20 meeting that starvation could kill more Africans than COVID-19.

10: American women are the latest victims of the supply chain crunch. Tampon shortages as a result of staffing issues at manufacturing plants, transportation disruptions, and the scarcity of materials like cotton caused tampon prices to soar almost 10% in the US in recent months.

50: Europe’s largest paper packaging company, Smurfit Kappa, recorded a whopping 50% increase in core profit during the first half of this year as a result of surging pandemic-related demand. Still, the company says it’s preparing for paper shortages across the continent in the months ahead as a result of mandatory gas rationing as EU states try to reduce their dependence on Russian natural gas.

An increasingly thirsty planet

The amount of water on Earth has been more or less the same for the past 4.5 billion years. But today, a growing number of the world’s people don’t have access to enough of it. In fact, nearly half of the world's population lives in places that face water scarcity for at least one month every year. And more than 1.2 billion people lack regular access to clean water altogether.

For many of them, the situation is getting worse by the day, as climate change causes more frequent droughts or conflicts prevent people from getting to freshwater sources. The lack of access to clean water for drinking, cooking, and crops can cause illness, starvation, and death.

Small wonder, then, that water scarcity is one factor behind some of the world’s most intractable conflicts: Israel-Palestine, India-Pakistan, and now Russia-Ukraine.

The desperate search for water also has millions on the move. The UN warns that water scarcity could force some 700 million people from their homes in the coming years, in mass migrations that will test governments, humanitarian organizations, and societies alike.

But it’s not all parched earth, thirst, and conflict. Water scarcity can also give rise to spectacular practical and technological innovations, as the examples of water management in the arid landscapes of Israel, Nevada, and South Africa show.

In this special edition of Signal, we’ll look at how the world is coping with water scarcity and what’s at stake for an increasingly thirsty planet.

What We’re Watching: Water wars vs. cooperation

Water wars?

Hundreds of millions of both Indians and Pakistanis depend on water from the Indus River for drinking, farming, and hydropower. The Indus Waters Treaty, signed by India’s prime minister and Pakistan’s president in 1960, guarantees how water from the river and its tributaries will be shared. This was put at risk in February 2019, when a suicide car bomb killed more than 40 Indian soldiers in the Indian-controlled sector of Kashmir. India’s transport minister responded with plans to “stop our share of water which used to flow to Pakistan.” The Pakistani government then warned it would treat any stoppage of water as an “act of war.” A treaty loses its values if one side decides not to honor it. Though tensions cooled in this case, the risk of a water war remains, because it’s simply too dangerous for these nuclear-armed and bitter rivals to fight a war with conventional weapons, and water will only become a more precious resource in coming years. Global warming could shrink the Himalayan glaciers that feed the river by more than a third in coming decades and make rainfall patterns more erratic, even as Indian and Pakistan water demand increases with population growth.

India and Pakistan are not the only rivals to successfully share water despite bitter differences on other questions. The five former Soviet Republics in Central Asia have not fought over access to the Aral Sea. Jordan and Israel haven’t waged war over the waters of the Jordan River. Threats over access to the Nile have not yet provoked war among Ethiopia, Sudan, and Egypt. A dispute over the Mekong River between China and its Southeast Asian neighbors has generated tensions but not widespread violence. Turkey and Armenia, neighbors with no diplomatic relations who have argued for decades over charges of genocide, have continued to share water from the Arpacay River, which forms the border between them. The two countries continued to honor the Soviet-era treaty that set water-use terms even while the two have fought on opposing sides of a war in 2020.

But successfully managed disputes of the past don’t guarantee a peaceful future, so these and other potential water-based confrontations are worth watching.

Can water cooperation bring peace to the Middle East?

Water scarcity is one of the biggest crises emanating from climate change. If current trends continue, the UN warns that 5 billion people — more than two-thirds of the global population — could be living in areas grappling with extreme water scarcity by 2050. Long dealing with irregular rainfall, increasingly arid conditions, and a growing population, Israel has emerged as a global leader in clean water solutions. Israel, a tech hub, recognized early the importance of treating wastewater to meet growing domestic needs and to leverage it as a tool for international cooperation. In 2000, Israel, which straddles the Sea of Galilee and the extremely salty (and undrinkable) Dead Sea, revamped its water management system by building a slew of desalination plants. It has also revolutionized water recycling, treating wastewater effluent to make the liquid ready for human consumption and irrigation. The country currently recycles about 86% of water, using much of it for agricultural purposes in the arid Negev Desert.

This innovation has also presented opportunities for “drought diplomacy.” Last year, Israel and Jordan, who have long enjoyed a frosty peace, outlined a water-for-energy deal that will see Amman exchange solar energy capacity for much-needed desalinated water. Meanwhile, Israel has also partnered with Arab states, Egypt, and Bahrain on water-management approaches and equipment to mitigate shortages at home.

Innovative solutions to water scarcity problems can be found globally. The US state of Nevada recently inked a deal with California’s government, whereby Nevada will dole out cash to help the Golden State develop new water treatment facilities in exchange for increased access to Lake Mead. Similarly, drought-stricken South Africa, once facing Day Zero – whereby taps were slated to be turned off in major cities like Cape Town because of water shortages – has successfully found a slate of tech-based solutions, particularly for the robust agriculture sector.

The Graphic Truth

In many low- and middle-income countries, the availability of safe, drinkable water remains scarce. Though access has improved significantly in many places over the past two decades — by 152% in Afghanistan, for instance — the very low baseline means that still only 28% of that population has access to high-quality drinking water. Meanwhile, countries like the Central African Republic, Zambia, Nepal, and Pakistan saw their access reduced over the past two decades. Here’s a snapshot of the relative change in access to safe drinking water around the world from 2000 to 2020.

​Podcast: Saving the world’s water supply

In our latest “Living Beyond Borders” podcast from Citi Private Bank and GZERO Media, we examine the global risks related to the depletion of a vital ingredient needed for everything in life: water.

Severe weather events and climate change are causing an urgent water crisis. By changing our natural world, through both big and small disasters, water scarcity is disastrously on the rise worldwide.

To delve into this immediate threat, Eurasia Group’s Director of Energy, Climate & Resources Mikaela McQuade talks to Franck Gbaguidi, senior analyst of energy, climate & resources at Eurasia Group, and Harlin Singh, global head of sustainable investing at Citi Global Wealth.

Hard Numbers: India’s record drought, privatized waterways, dripping wet smartphones, big oil meets little water

669: Already sweltering amid a heatwave, the capital of India now faces water shortages with the level at Delhi's biggest reservoir dropping to 669 feet, a record low. The city’s government, run by the anti-corruption AAP party, accuses the BJP-ruled Haryana state of deliberately withholding water from the Yamuna River, which it denies.

454 billion: Private corporations control 454 billion cubic meters of water around the world, about 5% of the global supply. This water-grabbing is a major problem in Africa, where China, India, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE are investing big in water-intensive agriculture projects.

3,190: That smartphone in your hand is soaking wet – maybe (hopefully!) not literally, but it took 3,190 gallons of water to manufacture it. The production of chips and semiconductors – which are what make smartphones smart – is one of the world’s most water-intensive industries.