Ensure environmental sustainability
Target 10: By 2015, halve the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation.
Progress
The world, except sub-Saharan Africa, is on track to meet the target of halving the proportion of people without access to safe drinking water while at the current rate we will miss the MDG sanitation target by over 700 million people. Progress is slowest in sub-Saharan Africa, where 28 per cent of the population does not have access to any form of sanitation and has the largest population using unimproved water sources.
Access to basic sanitation
Between 1990 and 2006, the proportion of people without improved sanitation decreased by only 8 percentage points.
To meet the target, at least 173 million people on average per year will need to begin using improved sanitation facilities. Most countries that are not on track to meet the MDG sanitation targets are in sub-Saharan Africa and Southern Asia.
Access to safe drinking water:
Current trends suggest that more than 90% of the global population will use improved drinking water sources by 2015.
87% of the global population now uses an improved source of drinking water, compared to 77% in 1990.
An additional 784 million people worldwide will need to get access to an improved drinking water source to meet the MDG target.
Accelerated progress is needed in sub-Saharan Africa, home to more than a third of those using unimproved drinking water sources.
Key messages
Access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation are essential for the achievement of the other MDGs. For example, it is a fundamental requirement for effective primary health care, increasing enrolment of boys and girls in schools and a pre-condition for success in the fight against poverty, hunger, child mortality and in achieving greater gender equality.
The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that for every 50 pence invested in safe water and basic sanitation, the economic returns will range from £1.50 to £17, depending on the region and the technology. This means that while achieving the MDG targets on water and sanitation will require an annual investment of over £5 billion, doing so will deliver economic benefits of around £42 billion a year. This includes savings of approximately £3 billion a year in the health sector. (Assuming an exchange rate of US$1=£0.5).
Hitting the targets will also save many lives. Diarrhoea causes nearly 1.5 million deaths each year, mostly among young children, and is the third largest cause of death from infectious disease. In fact, one child dies approximately every 20 seconds from diarrhoea. About 90 per cent of those deaths could be prevented through safer water, sanitation and hygienic practices, according to the WHO.
DFID’s country-level work to improve water management
China DFID supports the improvement of water resources management through five key projects, which will help over two million people living in the poor western part of the country to gain more secure access to water. These projects focus on ensuring poor people benefit from watershed management and fair allocation of water.
India DFID supports the improvement of water and land management in Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa and Karnataka to support better livelihoods for 15 million people. In Andhra Pradesh, this has lifted one million people above the poverty line.
Sudan DFID is supporting UNEP to help local government bodies implement more effective water resources management plans. This will ensure more secure access to water for seven million people, including two million people living in camps.
Facts and figures
Dirty water and inadequate sanitation kill over 4,100 children every day.
At any one time, half the people in the developing world are suffering from diseases associated with inadequate water supply and sanitation services and more than half the hospital beds in the world are filled with people suffering from water related diseases.
Huge disparities exist between regions: while access to drinking water through a household connection in rural areas is as low as 5% in sub-Saharan Africa, it is much higher in Eastern Asia (62%), North Africa (63%) and Western Asia (57%).
More than 2.5 billion people remain without improved sanitation. Almost 1.8 billion of them – 70% - live in Asia.
The lowest sanitation coverage is found in sub-Saharan Africa, where only 31% of the population uses improved sanitation, up just 5% since 1990.
Challenges and Solutions
Improving access to water can be difficult because responsibility for water resource management is usually spread across many different parts of the government in developing countries. No single government department can take the lead as they often have conflicting views.
The UN Human Development Report ‘Beyond scarcity: Power, poverty and the global water crisis’ published in November 2006 highlighted four foundations for success:
- make water a human right – and mean it
- draw up national strategies for water and sanitation
- support national plans with international aid
- develop a global action plan. DFID affirmed water as a human right on the day the report was published.
Working with partner governments and regional and national development agencies, DFID aims to be a major part of the global effort to achieve the following:
- increase the effectiveness of multilateral and bilateral programmes to get Africa on track towards achieving the water and sanitation MDG targets
- increase the number of people with access to safe water by over 85 million every year and to basic sanitation by over 170 million every year, to improve health, livelihoods and well-being and reduce infant mortality
- see sanitation championed globally in a way that leads to substantial behaviour change and significant progress towards the sanitation MDG target
- ensure that every school and health clinic has a safe water supply and well maintained toilets, separate for boys and girls
- ensure that at least two-thirds of development assistance for water and sanitation goes to low-income countries
- ensure that human resources are strengthened to allow countries to develop coherent plans and policies, manage and maintain services and allocate public revenue effectively and fairly
- ensure that water resources are managed in an effective and equitable way that promotes economic growth, improves security and helps countries cope with climate change.
What the UK government is doing to help
DFID’s 2008 water and sanitation policy paper, “Water: An increasingly precious resource, Sanitation: A matter of dignity” committed us to spend £1 billion on water and sanitation in Africa over the next five years. DFID will support at least 30 million more people to get access to improved sanitation in South Asia by 2011. We will provide an additional £30 million over the next three years to improve the management of water resources in Asia and Africa, in response to the impacts of climate change, to support economic growth and avoid conflict. And we will continue to support innovative multilateral initiatives and strengthen our engagement in the development of international policy.
At the international level, we supported the first pilot annual global monitoring report for water and sanitation – the UN-Water Global Annual Assessment of Sanitation and Drinking Water. And at the country level, we are helping Ethiopia put in place an annual report on its increasingly harmonised water sector. We are also helping Ethiopia implement its seven-year Universal Access Programme (UAP). As demanded by the ‘Five Ones’, the UN is co-ordinating its support to the UAP through a single UN body – UNICEF.
Sources
1 – World Health Organization and United Nations Children’s Fund (2008) Joint Monitoring Programme: Progress on Drinking Water and Sanitation: Special Focus on Sanitation. WHO: Geneva.
2 – Prüss-Üstün A., Bos R., Gore, F. and Bartram, J. (2008) Safer Water, Better Health: Costs, Benefits and Sustainability of Interventions to Protect and Promote Health. World Health Organization: Geneva.
3- Hutton, G. and Haller, L. (2004) Evaluation of the Costs and Benefits of Water and Sanitation Improvements at the Global Level. Executive Summary of the document: WHO/SDE/WSH/04.04: Geneva.
4 – World Health Organization and United Nations Children’s Fund (2006). Meeting the MDG Drinking Water and Sanitation Target. The Urban and Rural Challenge of the Decade. WHO: Geneva.
5- DFID (2008) water and sanitation policy paper, Water: An increasingly Sanitation: A matter of dignity. DFID: London
6 - Human Development Report. (2006) Beyond Scarcity: Power, Poverty and the Global Water Crisis. Palgrave Macmillan: Basingstoke.
7 - World Health Organization (2008) UN-Water Global Annual Assessment of Sanitation and Drinking-Water: 2008 pilot report – testing a new reporting approach. WHO: Geneva.