Growing conflicts over who owns water and how to manage it are emerging all over the world. Although debates at the UN and among civil society have moved toward the recognition of water as a basic human right, the United States still lags behind.

This United Nations Rio+20 Earth Summit happening now is a reminder of how little has been achieved since 1992, the last time diplomats gathered there to focus on global environmental perils. The final segment of the Rio+20 meeting opened yesterday with no coherent agenda and is likely to close tomorrow with few practical outcomes.

"The goal of The Water Tank Project is to produce art as social intervention and bring about changes in knowledge, attitudes, and behavior among those who experience it." Ideally the artwork will increase awareness about the global water crisis, appreciation of high quality drinking water, and education about the negative consequences of plastic waste.

Today in Rio de Janeiro, France will receive the WWF Leaders for a Living Planet award. This award recognizes France’s commitment to promoting the 1997 UN Convention on Transboundary Watercourses.

India and Bangladesh share 54 rivers between them. Despite setting up a Joint River Commission for water management as early as 1972, tensions between the countries on how to share resources recently came to a head in a dispute over the Teesta River. At stake are the lives of countless people from West Bengal and Bangladesh who depend upon the river for survival.

India has found a new gateway to project its Africa diplomacy as it explores a partnership with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation which is engaged in a range of activities in the emerging continent. This possibility of collaborating in Africa emerged from talks between External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna and Microsoft founder Bill Gates here Thursday.

The USC Center on Public Diplomacy is now accepting submissions for a special Water Diplomacy edition of its CPD Perspectives series. CPD is accepting essays between 2,500 and 3,500 words in length and case studies that are 1,000 words in length.