Nature-based solutions an opportunity for countries in the Global South

In Africa, South America and Asia, cities of millions are drowning in untreated wastewater, while clean water is a scarce commodity. According to U.S. researchers, nature-based solutions could be the key to improving the situation, facilitating the Sustainable Development Goals. On June 5 this year, the journal PLOS Water published a study summarizing the opportunities and challenges in this area.

Nature-based solutions use natural mechanisms and healthy ecosystems to protect societies, optimize infrastructure and ensure a stable future for the world. They have been implemented in developed countries for years, but it is the Global South, with its rapid demographic growth and chaotic urbanization, that seems to need them most.

Global South and water problems

The Global South is usually understood as the countries of South America, Africa, the Middle East (excluding Israel) and South Asia and Oceania (excluding Australia, New Zealand and South Korea). The main distinguishing criterion in this case is not so much geography as GDP and level of socioeconomic development.

A team of researchers from the University of Manchester published in late December 2024 the results of a study showing that the Global South’s water security problem is largely ignored. Specifically, it concerns the large rivers that flow through the territories of many countries, which provide drinking water for billions of people and feed agriculture, conditioning food production.

Conflicts over water rights overlap with political themes here, and the effects of climate change are particularly acute. Also problematic is heavy water pollution resulting from the lack of an effective wastewater treatment system and intensive urban development, which hinders the absorption of rainwater.

Researchers from the United States have analyzed how the implementation of nature-based solutions in the Global South differs from practices in the North, and how their full potential can be realized where it matters most.

Nature-based solutions as a basis for sustainable development

According to the authors of this study, improving water security in countries of the Global South is a priority today, reflected in a number of Sustainable Development Goals:

• SDG 3: Good health and quality of life;
• SDG 6: Clean water and sanitation;
• SDG 11: Sustainable cities and communities;
• SDG 13: Climate Change Action.

Unfortunately, nature-based solutions are not always the first choice. Their dependence on ecological processes means that it takes longer to see results than gray sanitation infrastructure. As a result, local authorities often prefer concrete projects.

Meanwhile, initiatives such as the reuse of waste water to feed local reservoirs or irrigate crops open up huge potential for developing countries. Other effective area-based conservation methods (OECMs), activities that use informal conservation to achieve social goals, also deserve special attention. With their help, catchments of rivers supplying water to hundreds of millions of people can be effectively protected.

Socio-economic challenges

Most countries in the Global South still suffer from the legacy of colonization today. A huge part of the population lives in peripheral urban areas, where development is often informal and thus escapes legal regulations and management systems. Unregulated land titles are also a problem, making larger-scale investment difficult.

Due to high poverty rates, authorities prefer to use available funds for investments that increase economic development and job creation rather than for climate resilience or improving environmental quality. This short-sightedness is not conducive to implementing nature-based solutions.

According to the study’s authors, it is necessary to change public perception of ecological urban development projects. A priority in this regard is to invite representatives of local populations to participate in planned projects. NGOs can play a key role in this regard.

Positive examples from the world

As proof that it can, the study’s authors point to positive examples of the application of nature-based solutions in the Global South’s water sector.

One of these is the Indian city of Bengaluru, where a collaborative effort between government agencies, scientific institutes and civil society organizations has succeeded in restoring a degraded network of more than a thousand water reservoirs built over centuries for irrigation and fish farming. Investment in wastewater treatment plants and the use of waste water for irrigation and restoration of groundwater resources has allowed for significant aquifer regeneration. Waterfowl have returned to areas of renaturalized wetlands, and the city has gained new recreational areas. Bengaluru now recycles 76 percent of its wastewater, and the water obtained is used in agriculture, reducing the intake from local rivers.

In Colombia, thanks in part to international support, the Bana Do Bari project has succeeded in improving the situation of traditional Embera societies that, as a result of armed conflict, have had to migrate to areas without access to water and sanitation. The initiative included the creation of artificial wetlands with a purification function and the construction of a sewage network. Local community members were involved in the design and development process, increasing their satisfaction with the new blue-green infrastructure.

In regions where nature-based solutions cannot be implemented on a full scale due to lack of funds and space constraints, small-scale projects based on existing gray infrastructure are possible. In Kenya’s Kibera, a district that is one of the most overcrowded areas in Africa, it has been possible to rehabilitate riverfront zones and improve slums through ecological corridors and small green spaces.

Need for cooperation, knowledge and examples

Nature-based solutions are still treated with a great deal of skepticism in the Global South, mainly as another manifestation of Northern imperialism that protects the climate at the expense of the people. The aforementioned examples of positive change are rare and little known, exacerbating the distrust of authorities and local communities. According to American researchers, the only way to overcome this barrier is through the transfer of good practices and technology.

One should not be surprised that support for incomprehensible projects is low when environmental awareness is limited to the scientific community. Spreading awareness of the impact of nature-based solutions is particularly important in young societies, which have enormous development potential. In sub-Saharan Africa, as much as 70 percent of the population is under the age of 30!

U.S. scholars argue that engineers, planners and landscape architects need to be trained, and national and local governments need to be assisted with maps showing the potential use of blue-green infrastructure. Nature-based solutions are not only an opportunity to improve the water situation in overcrowded cities in the Global South, but also an important boost to the global ecosystem.

MAIN PHOTO: Mike Prince/Wikimedia

In the article, I used:

1. Abera LE, Jumani S, van Rees CB, Krishnaswamy J, Seigerman CK, et al. (2025) Integrating Nature-based Solutions for urban water security in global south. PLOS Water 4(6): e0000372. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pwat.0000372
2. Mehebub Sahana et al, Global disparities in transboundary river research have implications for sustainable management, Communications Earth & Environment (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s43247-024-01928-0