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Water and Sanitation: MDG targets
under threat
Samuel Dowuona,
Ghanadot
March 23,
2007
March 22, each year is celebrated as World Water Day. Ghana
celebrated the day quietly.
“The human right to water entitles everyone to sufficient,
safe, acceptable, physically accessible and affordable water
for personal and domestic use” - General Comment 15 on The
Right to Water.
During his last few years in office as UN Secretary-General,
Busumuru Kofi Annan, cautioned that the rate at which the
water sources around the world were being depleted from
climate change caused by the emission of greenhouse gases,
among other things, the world would soon face water crisis!
According to the 2006 Human Development Report (HDR), water
crisis is here with us to stay. In effect, what we need to
be doing now is how to manage the crisis
and possibly reverse it.
In Ghana for instance, where the population is relatively
small at 22 million, after 50 years of independence, it is
still very common, especially lately, to see groups of
children and adults carrying gallons and buckets,even
on the streets of the capital city,
in search of water.
The situation is worse in the
rural communities, where people are compelled to drink, bath
in, do laundry and also cook with untreated water. Recently
in some communities in Northern Ghana, it was discovered
that the Guinea Worm Disease was back due to lack of
adequate water. As a result, Ghana was now rated number two
in the world for Guinea worm prevalence.
The reason is simple. The main sources of portable water,
the Akosombo, Kpong and Weija dams are fast depleting
because they depend solely on rain water
sources, which have not been favourable lately,
probably due to the same reason Busumuru cited - climate
change.
I was recently told that in Jaasekan in the Volta Region,
both humans and cattle drink water from the same source side
by side. For that to happen after 50 years of independence
is a question that perhaps we must all find an answer to.
The crisis I learn is not at all limited to Ghana alone.
Fifty (50) per cent of people in the developing world,
mainly sub-Saharan Africa, suffer from water-related health
problems every year. And at the
global level, more than a third of the
world’s population, again, mostly
in the developing world, lack access to decent
sanitation.
The HDR 2006, entitled “Water for life, Water for
livelihoods”, focuses in its entirety, on water and
sanitation, apparently to draw the attention of the
international community and individual states to the crisis
facing our world.
It is captured under six main themes, namely the crisis in
water and sanitation, water for human consumption, the
sanitation deficit, water, vulnerability and risk, water and
agriculture, and trans-boundary waters.
One of the striking statistics in the report was in regard
to what impact the current rate at which water sources were
being depleted and poorly managed, is likely to have on
Millennium Development Goals (MDG) targets for water and
sanitation.
According to the report at current trends, MDG targets for
halving the number of people who do not have access to water
by year 2015, will be missed by a whooping 235 million
people and that for sanitation will be missed by 431 million
people.
The regional statistics show that only Latin America is on
track to meet MDG targets for both water and sanitation on
time, while only South Asia is on course to meet the target
for water and East Asia is well on the way to meet
sanitation targets.
The other regions are completely off track. Sub-Saharan
African for instance is rather likely to meet water targets
in 2040 - 25 years after MDG target time - and sanitation in
2076 - 61 years later. My heart bleeds!
In effect, by the close of the target period 800 million
people, instead of 565 million people, most of whom are in
the developing world will still be without water and 2.1
billion (still more than a third of current world
population), instead of 1.669 billion people will be without
decent sanitation.
Obviously the water crisis facing the world today, which
threatens to even be worse if trends go unchecked, is
largely a crisis of the poor and
the underdeveloped.
The report pointed to the unfavourable politics of water,
both at the national and international levels, for which
budget allocation to water is typically as low as 0.5 per
cent of GDP for almost every country in the world, as the
major suspect factor for this kind of situation.
In Ethiopia for instance the military budget is 10 times
that of water and sanitation and in Pakistan it is 47 times.
It seems weapons are more important to some countries than
providing water for their populace.
Bad water politics and its attendant low funding alone is
responsible for the global inequalities in the distribution
of the world’s available water and for the poorest of the
poor, according to the report, have access to less water and
yet pay more for water than the rich; particularly the
millions of poor women who spend at least four hours a day
looking for water for their families, also lack the
political voice to make their claim for water.
Children feel the impact and that is reflected in as high as
1.8 million infant deaths (4,900 deaths per day) from
diarrhoea due to the use of unclean water and also 443
million school days are lost due to water related illnesses
all in one year.
The situation was even worse in 2004, when the recorded
number of water-related infant deaths were higher than
deaths due to conflicts in the 1990s. The report dared to
say that at the beginning of the 21st century, unclean water
is the world’s second highest killer.
It was not far fetched, when the State of The World’s
Children Report 2007 focused on what the empowerment of
women or otherwise, means for the well being of children.
That report did not mince words on the fact that when women
suffer, children automatically suffer. Women lack access to
portable water, children die from diarrhoea and miss school.
Some experts have argued that global water crisis could only
mean an absolute shortage of water worldwide, but the
framers of the report believe crisis could mean the
inequalities in the availability of clean water due to
poverty and unequal power relationships as well as flawed
water management, which exacerbates the crisis.
It therefore strongly advocates for sweeping water reforms
at both the local and international levels with the view to
bridging the inequalities in the distribution of water and
sanitation across the world. A Global Action Plan the report
said, is very much need.
An example was given of western cities like London, New York
and Paris where water-related diseases such as diarrhoea and
dysentery were rampant even after rising incomes and
industrial revolution until sweeping reforms in their water
and sanitation sectors.
Additionally, countries must make water a human right and
mean it. They would need to show their commitment by drawing
national water strategies and working towards them. Indeed
the international community must include water in
partnership for development initiatives with the view to
complementing efforts of especially poor nations with more
aid.
Again there is the need to critically look at the benefits
of achieving the MDG targets for water and sanitation.
According to the report, if MDG targets are achieved, at
least one million lives would be saved. In terms of the
economic benefits, 38 billion US dollars would be gained and
15 billion US dollars of that would benefit Sub-Saharan
Africa alone.
Besides, for every one US dollar spent in reaching MDG
targets, the world will gain eight US dollars.
If not for anything, the economic benefits should drive the
nations and the international community to get back on track
through the Global Action Plan for Water and Sanitation and
through making water a human right, for which budgetary
allocation would be much higher than it is now, to ensure
that MDG targets are fully achieved.
Samuel Dowuonah, March 23, 2007
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