Maintaining the environment in prime condition is essential to ensuring sustainable social and economic development. People with fewer resources are disproportionally affected by environmental degradation and the lack of access to drinking water and sanitation.

Within a social framework, vulnerability is defined as the inability of a community to absorb, by means of self-sufficiency, the effects of a specific change in its environment; in other words, its inflexibility or inability to adapt to this change (Wilches-Chaux, taken from Parés, J., 2001). These changes are most often linked to environmental issues, such as natural events that generate disasters, unfavourable alterations to water quality, air or climate change.

The concept of vulnerability, with regard to the environment, is primarily applied to the occurrence of disasters, to initiatives carried out by the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) and the vulnerability assessments of communities at risk of food shortages undertaken by the World Food Programme.

These problems occurring on a world scale must be addressed from the perspectives of analyses, identifying the vulnerable groups and how they relate to their environment, as well as poverty. To achieve this, policies are required to reduce vulnerability and these must be included in worldwide debates on sustainable development.

Conscious of this reality and in a bid to create spaces for debate and reflection, the Red Cross is organising the Third Conference on Water, Drought and Vulnerability. It aims to discuss the water crisis and address possible solutions stemming from our institution.

We are committed to providing a detailed analysis of the humanitarian consequences of climate change, water shortage and environmental degradation with regard to issues such as health, migration, food safety and the economy, and to suggest best practices at the local level.