Nearly half of the world’s population lives in an area that faces water scarcity for at least a month every year and one in three people globally do not have access to safe drinking water. Today we meet two women who are working on solutions to cope with droughts.

Jimena Puyana is a sustainable development programme specialist with the UNDP Country Office in Colombia. She works on implementing nature and community-based solutions to fight climate change in La Mojana, a region with one of the most complex water deltas in the world.

Smita Kurup is a scientist at Rothamsted Research, a non-profit organisation based in the UK. She leads research in seed developmental biology and has been working on developing drought-resilient and more sustainable rice crops.

Produced by Alice Gioia

(Image: (L) Jimena Puyana, courtesy of UNDP Colombia. (R) Smita Kurup, credit Alasdair Cross.)