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The Democratic Republic Of The Congo Is A Country Located

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The Democratic Republic of the Congo is a country located in the heart of Africa. It has an ample amount of water due to the rivers and fresh water abundance but has been in a water shortage crisis for nearly three decades now. The Democratic Republic of the Congo has several social, economic and environmental issues associated with its water shortage. The country is prone to seasonal droughts in the southern regions and seasonal flooding of the Congo river. They have plenty of water but most of it is considered undrinkable because of the pollution and diseases carried in the rivers. Additionally, the increase in the mining of minerals, like diamonds and gold, has spiked a peak in environmental threats. Even worse, the Democratic Republic …show more content…

(Partow, 6) Global Issues stated that this was the deadliest conflict since World War II. A clear majority of this conflict has been related to diseases transmitted by polluted drinking water and children often carry the burden. Of the total deaths since 1998, children accounted for 47% of them and 45,000 people die monthly. (Shah) The violence in this war-torn nation has quite literally torn apart this country’s infrastructure and has left millions of people without access to clean drinking water.
Next, economically, the Democratic Republic of the Congo is in a shattered state after the war. They are constantly fighting inflation and often do not have the financial backing to solve many of their big issues. In the capital city, Kinshasa, over 2 million people live on less that one US dollar per day. In the rural areas, some people live on less than two US dimes. (Shah) The Democratic Republic of the Congo’s national government is still wrestling for control of the country and they literally lack the funds to rebuild the infrastructure. Furthermore, less economically developed countries often lack a regulatory national structure for construction expenditure and insurance so that when everything was destroyed there was no collateral to fix the destruction. In UNEP’s study, the estimated the cost of rebuilding the country’s infrastructure was $2 billion and that was just to meet the Millennium Development Goals Water Target.

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