World not ‘listening’ on water: new report

A NEW report, which was to be released yesterday, World Water Day, blames the international community for the most serious failure in development of the last 50 years.

Despite decades of effort and billions of dollars, 2,4 billion people still have no access to adequate sanitation, the Geneva-based Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council (WSSCC) states in the report called ‘Listening’. “The main barrier to safe water, sanitation, and hygiene for all is not a lack of resources; it is a lack of willingness to learn from past failures and to listen to those who have pioneered new approaches,” the report claims.Lack of water and sanitation is the world’s number one health problem, with half of the world’s poor suffering at any one time.This year 2,2 million children will die because of water-borne diseases, according to the WSSCC.”Today the key issue in water and sanitation is not, primarily, the availability of resources.It is the willingness on the part of those who allocate those resources to learn the lessons of both past failures and current successes.”That is why the WSSCC believes that, at the present time, the greatest contribution it can make towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) for water and sanitation is to listen to, and if possible to amplify, the voices of those who have felt the frustrations of failure, those who have helped pioneer the successes, and those who have lived and learnt the lessons from both,” says Dr Jan Pronk, Chairman of WSSCC.’Listening’ asks why, after decades of effort and billions of dollars of investment, so little progress has been made.In response, the report offers the voices of 40 people from Latin America, Asia and Africa who have spent a lifetime working on water and sanitation and know what has been happening on the ground.Almost all of the contributors to ‘Listening’ agree that the old approach to providing water and sanitation services is fatally flawed, and that simply pouring billions more dollars into a cracked vessel will not lead to the achievement of the MDGs, but to more years of failure and frustration.The UN Millennium Goals, adopted by the international community, include a specific commitment to halve the number of people without clean water and sanitation by 2015.The almost unanimous judgement of the contributors to ‘Listening’, shared by the WSSCC, is that water and sanitation goals are unlikely to be achieved by more ‘business as usual’.NAMIBIAN SITUATIONThe situation in Namibia, even with its relatively small population, is not much better.Dr Chris Brown, Executive Director of the Namibia Nature Foundation (NNF), set out the implications of the water and sanitation target for the country in a recent article in ‘Conservation 2003/4′.He said that by the year 2000, the urban population was 630 000 people (35 per cent of the total population).By 2015, it is estimated, the urban population will reach 1,2 million or 48 per cent of the total population.”To halve the number of people without access to clean water and sanitation involves halving the current number of people in this category, plus all the future people,” Brown said.This means Namibia will have to provide clean water to about 37 580 additional urban people and 20 370 additional rural people per year.The figures for sanitation are almost 40 000 for both urban and rural people per year.”Assuming there are – on average – six people per household, Namibia would need to supply about 9 660 additional households with water each year, and about 13 160 additional households with sanitation each year to meet the target.”Brown concluded by asking whether these targets were achievable, and if the Ministries responsible for implementation even knew about them.Helmut Angula, Minister of Water and Rural Development, told The Namibian last year, after attending the 3rd World Water Forum in Japan, that the main reason for Government not paying much attention to public health issues was a “lack of funding”.He said Government was committed to achieving the MDG for water and sanitation but, because of a lack of concrete promises of funding to achieve the goals, he felt they would not be realised.SOLUTIONSThe WSSCC report suggests that progress towards water and sanitation goals must be measured not by counting the number of taps and toilets and dividing them into the total population served, but by recording changes in use, behaviour, maintenance and, above all, improvements in health.The WSSCC feels the ultimate responsibility rests on the shoulders of national and local governments; that their priorities and policies, their attitudes and actions, will determine whether known solutions are put into action on the same scale as the known problems.Most contributors agree that the primary action governments need to take is to facilitate community-based action.”It is about trusting local communities, their organisations, and those who work with them.It is about creating space and building local capacity by providing the kind of support that does not undermine confidence or take away initiative.For both individuals and communities, it is an approach that offers more than taps and toilets.It offers dignity, pride, and hope.”The WSSCC was set up in 1990 through a mandate by the United Nations General Assembly to maintain the momentum of the International Drinking Water Supply and Sanitation Decade (1981-1990).Numbering over 1 800, its members, comprising professionals from over 140 countries are working to make safe water and adequate sanitation a reality for everyone.”The main barrier to safe water, sanitation, and hygiene for all is not a lack of resources; it is a lack of willingness to learn from past failures and to listen to those who have pioneered new approaches,” the report claims.Lack of water and sanitation is the world’s number one health problem, with half of the world’s poor suffering at any one time.This year 2,2 million children will die because of water-borne diseases, according to the WSSCC.”Today the key issue in water and sanitation is not, primarily, the availability of resources.It is the willingness on the part of those who allocate those resources to learn the lessons of both past failures and current successes.”That is why the WSSCC believes that, at the present time, the greatest contribution it can make towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) for water and sanitation is to listen to, and if possible to amplify, the voices of those who have felt the frustrations of failure, those who have helped pioneer the successes, and those who have lived and learnt the lessons from both,” says Dr Jan Pronk, Chairman of WSSCC.’Listening’ asks why, after decades of effort and billions of dollars of investment, so little progress has been made.In response, the report offers the voices of 40 people from Latin America, Asia and Africa who have spent a lifetime working on water and sanitation and know what has been happening on the ground.Almost all of the contributors to ‘Listening’ agree that the old approach to providing water and sanitation services is fatally flawed, and that simply pouring billions more dollars into a cracked vessel will not lead to the achievement of the MDGs, but to more years of failure and frustration.The UN Millennium Goals, adopted by the international community, include a specific commitment to halve the number of people without clean water and sanitation by 2015.The almost unanimous judgement of the contributors to ‘Listening’, shared by the WSSCC, is that water and sanitation goals are unlikely to be achieved by more ‘business as usual’.NAMIBIAN SITUATIONThe situation in Namibia, even with its relatively small population, is not much better.Dr Chris Brown, Executive Director of the Namibia Nature Foundation (NNF), set out the implications of the water and sanitation target for the country in a recent article in ‘Conservation 2003/4’.He said that by the year 2000, the urban population was 630 000 people (35 per cent of the total population).By 2015, it is estimated, the urban population will reach 1,2 million or 48 per ce
nt of the total population.”To halve the number of people without access to clean water and sanitation involves halving the current number of people in this category, plus all the future people,” Brown said.This means Namibia will have to provide clean water to about 37 580 additional urban people and 20 370 additional rural people per year.The figures for sanitation are almost 40 000 for both urban and rural people per year.”Assuming there are – on average – six people per household, Namibia would need to supply about 9 660 additional households with water each year, and about 13 160 additional households with sanitation each year to meet the target.”Brown concluded by asking whether these targets were achievable, and if the Ministries responsible for implementation even knew about them.Helmut Angula, Minister of Water and Rural Development, told The Namibian last year, after attending the 3rd World Water Forum in Japan, that the main reason for Government not paying much attention to public health issues was a “lack of funding”.He said Government was committed to achieving the MDG for water and sanitation but, because of a lack of concrete promises of funding to achieve the goals, he felt they would not be realised.SOLUTIONSThe WSSCC report suggests that progress towards water and sanitation goals must be measured not by counting the number of taps and toilets and dividing them into the total population served, but by recording changes in use, behaviour, maintenance and, above all, improvements in health.The WSSCC feels the ultimate responsibility rests on the shoulders of national and local governments; that their priorities and policies, their attitudes and actions, will determine whether known solutions are put into action on the same scale as the known problems.Most contributors agree that the primary action governments need to take is to facilitate community-based action.”It is about trusting local communities, their organisations, and those who work with them.It is about creating space and building local capacity by providing the kind of support that does not undermine confidence or take away initiative.For both individuals and communities, it is an approach that offers more than taps and toilets.It offers dignity, pride, and hope.”The WSSCC was set up in 1990 through a mandate by the United Nations General Assembly to maintain the momentum of the International Drinking Water Supply and Sanitation Decade (1981-1990).Numbering over 1 800, its members, comprising professionals from over 140 countries are working to make safe water and adequate sanitation a reality for everyone.