Every Drop Counts? Why Libya Is Thinking Differently About Water Security
Over the last few months, many people across Libya have received text messages encouraging them to save water. It is a sensible message. Using water responsibly is something we should all support. But those messages also raise a bigger question. Can individual behaviour really solve Libya's water challenge?
The more we looked into the issue, the more it became clear that the answer is probably no. Water security in Libya is not simply about people leaving taps running. It is a much larger challenge involving infrastructure, institutions, long-term planning, and the sustainability of the country's water resources.
In many ways, the text message campaign highlights an important reality. Asking people to save water may help at the margin, but Libya's water future will be shaped far more by what happens within the systems that collect, transport, manage, and protect water than by what happens at the individual household level. That is why water is increasingly becoming a national development issue rather than simply an environmental one.
According to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Libya is one of the most water-scarce countries in the world and relies on non-renewable groundwater for more than 90 per cent of its water supply. At the same time, ageing infrastructure, growing demand, climate pressures, and inefficient water management continue to place increasing strain on the sector.
This challenge is not new. For decades, the Great Man-Made River Project has supplied water to Libya's major population centres and has played a critical role in supporting households, agriculture, and economic activity. Yet even a project of this scale cannot remove the need for effective management, maintenance, investment, and long-term planning.
Recognising these pressures, Libya officially adopted the National Water Security Strategy 2026-2050, with support from UNDP and the Government of Italy. The strategy represents one of the most ambitious attempts in recent years to address water security as a long-term national priority rather than a series of short-term crises.
At its core, the strategy seeks to improve how water is managed across the country. It focuses on strengthening governance, improving efficiency, protecting water resources, modernising infrastructure, and balancing future demand with available supply. It also reflects a shift in thinking, moving away from a model that simply tries to meet growing demand towards one that aims to manage water more sustainably.
The strategy is also supported by broader initiatives. In 2025, the European Union and Germany launched the Libya-EU Water Resources Management Facility, designed to strengthen national and local water management capacity, improve efficiency, modernise systems, and support sustainable use of water resources.
On paper, this all makes sense. The more difficult question is whether it can be delivered. This is where the real conversation begins. Libya's water challenge is not primarily a public-awareness challenge. It is an implementation challenge.
Having a strategy, international support, and public awareness campaigns is an important start, but plans alone do not produce results. The real test will be whether institutions have the capacity, resources, coordination, and long-term commitment needed to turn these ambitions into reality.
Delivering water security requires more than encouraging people to use less water. It also requires maintaining and upgrading infrastructure, reducing losses across water networks, improving governance, strengthening institutions, coordinating investments, and ensuring that national plans can be implemented consistently over many years. That is a difficult task in any country. It is even more challenging when institutions are still evolving and resources must be prioritised across competing needs.
This is partly why water security has attracted growing attention from both Libyan institutions and international development partners. There is an increasing recognition that reliable access to water underpins many other development goals, including public health, food production, economic growth, environmental resilience, and quality of life.
For ordinary citizens, discussions about national strategies can often feel distant. Yet the consequences of success or failure are very practical. Reliable water supplies affect households, schools, hospitals, farms, businesses, and entire communities. When water systems perform well, people may barely notice. When they fail, the impact can be felt across every part of daily life.
This brings us back to those text messages. Encouraging people to save water is not a bad idea. Individual responsibility matters, and public awareness plays an important role. But if Libya is serious about water security, the bigger question is not whether people turn off their taps. It is whether the systems behind those taps can be strengthened, maintained, and modernised for the decades ahead. That is ultimately what Libya's 2050 Water Security Strategy aims to achieve.
And that is why this conversation matters. Because in the end, water security will not be determined by a text message. It will be determined by whether long-term plans can be translated into effective institutions, functioning infrastructure, and practical improvements that reach communities across the country.
Only then will every drop truly count.