Water Security is Business Security

At the time of independence in 1947, Pakistan’s per capita water availability stood at 5,000 cubic metres per person per year. Today, it has declined to 899 cubic metres per person per year, placing Pakistan below the critical water-scarcity threshold. In cities across Sindh and Punjab, drinking water is often contaminated with arsenic at levels reaching hundreds of micrograms per litre, far exceeding the World Health Organization limit of 10 micrograms per litre. For the businesses that operate in Pakistan, these figures are not only a development concern. They are an operating risk, given that water is a critical input across a wide range of industries, from textiles and food processing to chemicals, pharmaceuticals and energy. We are running a large risk of the collapse of the private sector.

When asked why, the explanations heard tend to be external. Glaciers are melting at an accelerated rate. The population is growing. India controls the upstream rivers. All of these factors are true, however, such explanations share a convenience. They create a shift away from the challenges of our own systems. The more difficult reality is the one we must confront at home.

On paper, Pakistan’s water governance looks sound. The National Water Policy 2018, the Punjab Water Policy 2018 and the Sindh Water Policy 2023 all commit to inclusive, multi-stakeholder management. The national policy calls for “management practices that enable community participation in the performance, operation and ownership of water assets.” The Sindh policy establishes a Water Resources Council to bring relevant stakeholders together. The national policy similarly concedes that the fundamental challenge lies not in identifying what needs to be done, but in determining “how” it should be done and “who” should be responsible for delivering it.

It is the “how” and the “who” where the system breaks down. Four failures explain why the promise stays on paper.

The first is that water security demands a political time horizon that governments rarely have. Governments operate on five-year political cycles, creating an incentive to favour projects that can show results within a single term. Water projects such as modernising irrigation networks, managing groundwater to improving drainage, wastewater treatment and urban water systems, however, can take years to deliver their full benefits. The result is a persistent mismatch where a crisis that requires patient, sustained investment is being managed within a political system that rewards immediacy. For business, this shows up as physical risk. Manufacturers and agribusinesses that depend on irrigation, groundwater and municipal supply are exposed to shortages and rising costs long before long-term public investment arrives.

The second is a deep, two-way lack of trust. Government bodies and civil society organisations often invest in similar solutions but work in isolation, with no shared goal. These organisations face layers of paperwork and are repeatedly asked to prove their legitimacy, even when they have long track records. When distrust is this consistent, it looks less like a malfunction and more like a design feature. A system that keeps civil society on the defensive never has to share power with it.  For companies, the cost is a coordination gap. Businesses that want to invest in water stewardship often find no dependable public counterpart to work with, which weakens the returns on their own efforts.

The third is corruption and elite capture. Approvals can be sped up by informal payments. Local officials can pressure organisations to direct wells and water schemes towards favoured constituencies. Development schemes are widely seen to follow political affiliation and powerful landholders at the head of canals hold the strongest claims on water. Donor priorities can also skew where projects end up. Corruption in this sector is not the work of a few bad actors. It is part of how the system operates. For business, this is a regulatory and reputational risk. Where allocation is opaque and enforcement uneven, water access, permits and compliance become unpredictable, and companies can find themselves exposed to integrity risks they never set out to take on.

The fourth is the most human: the people who carry water are absent from the rooms where water decisions are made. In Pakistan, women and girls, particularly in rural areas, often bear the burden of collecting water, yet their voices remain underrepresented in water governance and decision-making. Grassroots women’s groups have built WASH systems in schools on their own, showing what communities can achieve when they are given the space and resources to act. However, they cannot scale that work without larger institutions willing to listen and share resources.

The private sector also has a critical role to play in addressing these challenges. Where workers’ households and neighbouring communities lack safe water, businesses can face poorer health, lost working days and strained community relations. Companies can respond by mapping basin-level water risks across operations and supply chains, measuring and disclosing water use and discharge, investing in efficiency and wastewater treatment, and supporting water governance that gives communities and women a genuine voice.

Taken together, these failures point to an uncomfortable conclusion. Pakistan has built a governance system that invites participation but rarely heeds it. Stakeholders are consulted, then ignored. Communities are invoked in policy documents, then absent from decisions. Participation without influence is not collaboration. It is co-option. None of this is technically difficult. It is politically difficult. Better dams and smarter canals will not fix a system whose problem is who benefits from it.