Most of us will probably agree the positive contributions to welfare made by safe water and sanitation cannot be overstated. It is a universal need (Baye et al., 2012) and nothing short of a basic human right (UN 2010). However, many countries around the world have found themselves in quite the predicament, as decades of national and international interventions have failed to overcome the barriers to improved conditions.
The United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) – the framework that has played a key part in improving the lives of the world's poorest people – challenged the international community to 'halve the proportion of the population without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation.' Yet, as the MDG era has come to a close, it is possible to see how far we still have to go. Despite the UN suggestion that more than 90 percent of the world’s population now has access to improved sources of safe and secure water, we have fallen short in meeting the sanitation goal, as 2.4 billion people are still without access to improved sanitation facilities.
In Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), access to clean water and sanitation services is notoriously insufficient. Throughout the region, 319 million people do not have access to improved drinking water and 695 million people lack improved sanitation facilities (WHO, 2015). Moreover, approximately one out of every five deaths in children under the age of 5 years is attributable to a water-related disease (WHO/UNICEF 2009).
Many of the problems relating to access in SSA are exaggerated in urban regions and in cities, especially. African cities are said to be the fastest growing cities in the world. According to The World Bank, cities in SSA are growing at a rate of 4.2% per year.
In the posts that will follow in the coming months, I hope to explore the implications of rapid urbanisation on access to safe water and basic sanitation in urban SSA, and identify the management strategies which could jointly form a unified approach to achieving Sustainable Development Goal 6. Furthermore, I will consider whether disparities between SSA and more developed regions across the world are going to widen, or whether this age of rapid urbanisation can bring with it solutions and opportunities.
The next blog in this series of posts will take a look into the history of development practice in urban SSA by exploring development in practice.
It seems like this blog is a bridge to your next topic (fine). I think that the 90% figure for global access can be challenged and perhaps what you know about practical urban access to safe water (and sanitation) would come in useful here.
ReplyDeleteHi Richard,
DeleteI too think the United Nation’s estimation of 90% is too presumptive and a bit far-fetched. After reading up on this matter, I have found it to be quite a touched upon subject. A fairly recent article by Shaheed et al. (2014) suggests that despite these reports suggesting unprecedented strides towards water access for all, there are, in many places all over the world, inadequacies which relate to the quality of the water.
This is something I have touched on in some of my more recent posts. For instance, in Informing the Debate: Water Access in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, I have assessed the situation of access to safe water and sanitation in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, reaching the conclusion that the water access situation is inefficient and ineffective, as:
Recent studies by Sarah Smiley (2013) and Nganyanyuka et al. (2014) in Dar es Salaam highlighted the fact many households were supposedly the recipients of clean water on paper, yet in reality they faced issues of water contamination or an undependable or expensive source of access.
I intend on complementing this finding by looking into the origins of the situation and what drove people to self-supply.
Robert
Shaheed, A., J. Orgill, M. A. Montgomery, M. A. Jeuland, and J. Brown (2014) 'Why "improved" water sources are not always safe', Bulletin of the World Health Organization, 94, 2, 283-9.