By Melissa Dayrit
An Introduction to Water and Sanitation
Statistics about lack of safe water and sanitation offer the most acute reflection of the failure of the modern world to distribute the rewards of new technologies. Over one billion people lack access to safe water and over two billion live without proper sanitation.
Water Carrier © WaterAid
Water-related diseases result in over five million deaths annually, of whom most are children. At the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, Governments were shamed into tough commitments but will their promises stumble over funding shortfalls, corporate meddling, and continuing wars?
Water and Poverty
In the developed world, it is easily forgotten that water is not only key to human life but also to local economies. People know that "time is money" but fail to appreciate the implications for so many countries where women and children spend hours collecting essential daily supplies of water. Time that could instead be utilized for income generation, and formal and non-formal education especially for female children. Also forgotten is the humiliation of lack of privacy for bathing and defecation, and the severe health problems caused by unsafe drinking water, poor sanitation and hygiene practice.
Successful projects for provision of safe water and sanitation unquestionably deliver not only improved quality of community health, but also capacity for women's livelihoods and children's education. There is no doubt that provision of adequate water and sanitation must be integral to alleviation of global poverty. the solution has more to do with political will
In common with other essentials to human life and human rights, scarcity of resource is not the main issue and the solution has more to do with political will.
At the Millennium Summit, the Development Goals agreed by the United Nations included the proposal “to halve, by the year 2015, the proportion of people who are unable to reach or to afford safe drinking water". This Goal was extended to include access to basic sanitation at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg in 2002.
World Water Forum
And in March 2003 the 3rd World Water Forum in Japan made commitments to increase the minimum requirements of water for proper health and sanitation as well as food production. Similar commitments for the promotion of better governance and improved capacity as well as the provision of adequate financing were also made.
Water and War
Achieving the Millennium Development Goals is no easy task and is already threatened by conflicts around the globe. Afghanistan, Angola, and Iraq provide painful evidence that essential water and sanitation facilities are invariably destroyed in war, that the consequent threat to health is immediate and critical, and that governance structures in the aftermath of war are unstable and inadequate to deliver remedies.
Water scarcity itself has the potential to generate conflict, especially in the Middle East More alarming still is the widely held view that water scarcity itself has the potential to generate conflict, especially in the Middle East. Integrated Water Resource Management is badly needed at international level, not only to avoid the prospect of war, but also to increase cooperation among nations.
Water and Gender
Gender issues are central to any discussion on water. Women usually take on the duty of educating children in sanitation and good hygiene practice. And women typically take responsibility for fetching water for household use, and for those daily activities that rely heavily on water, such as growing vegetables, caring for livestock, and food preparation. If collection of water occupies several hours a day, women are denied time to undertake income enhancing opportunities, and female children (who often have similar duties) denied time for studying.
As women clearly gain the most from the availability of accessible clean water, and safe sanitation, giving them a voice in the management and maintenance of water resources and facilities remains critical to improving the sustainability of water supply, especially in rural areas.
Water and Cities
Popular images of women collecting water in rural landscapes fuel the misunderstanding that the poor access to water and sanitation is a rural problem. But it is increasingly recognised that an equivalent crisis exists in the mushrooming urban populations of the developing world. Groundwater management is often out of control and river pollution endemic. More fundamental is the problem of migratory populations seeking prosperity in the urban environment whilst lacking legal title to land and consequent recognition by the city service providers. Alternative entities such as small-scale local providers and non-governmental organizations play an important role in reaching those that the law has abandoned.
