CLEARING THE WATER : A NEW PARADIGM FOR PROVIDING THE WORLD'S GROWING POPULATION WITH SAFE DRINKING WATER

Organized, Researched, Drafted, and Edited by:
Jacob Scherr and Barbara Bohart

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Excerpted Version (February 1998)

Over 1 billion people - about one-fifth of the world's population - lack access to safe drinking water. A child dies every eight seconds from contaminated water, with total deaths each year of over 5 million people. As the human population continues to grow, the problem of availability to safe drinking water is projected to worsen. Moreover, failure to address this water problem may actually exacerbate population growth by encouraging families to offset low child survival rates with increased fertility.

There have been twenty-five years of global conferences, declarations, and agendas to address the need for action to provide safe drinking water for all. The United Nations declared the 1980s as The International Drinking Water Supply Decade during which a $100 billion were spent on water supply projects. Nonetheless, the United Nations warned in 1997 that in 30 years population growth may result in as many as 5.5 billion people living in areas that suffer from severe water stress.

At the June 1997, Earth Summit Plus 5 at the United Nations, governments agreed to undertake yet another global discussion of safe drinking water. Our research, including consultations with leading water experts, indicates that the problem is not a lack of appropriate language or even adequate funding. There is already an international recognition that fresh water is a precious commodity which must effectively managed and conserved. Also simply throwing more money into water projects is not a solution.

Instead, we are suggesting a new paradigm for looking at the global issue of safe drinking water. There has to be a focus on national actions in the key countries: countries that have greatest number of people without access, countries where access has decreased, and countries whose rate of population growth will lead to severe access problems in the near future. Just five countries - China, India, Indonesia, Pakistan, and Nigeria - account for 50% to 80% of all the people without access to safe drinking water. Thirty-three other developing countries have seen their either their urban or rural percentage of population with access to safe drinking water decline. Five of these 33 countries have a population growth rate at or above 3 percent which will inevitably lead to severe access problems within the next decade.

The United Nations should not adopt yet another detailed abstract plan on safe drinking water nor encourage all nations to develop their own such plans. Instead, the UN Commission on Sustainable Development should establish a forum to review the prospects for making real progress, particularly in these key countries. The governments of each of these countries should be invited to make presentation on its efforts and plans to address safe drinking water and population issues, including identification of barriers and needs so that serious progress can be achieved. Each Head of Government would be expected to make a clear commitment to increased attention and investment in regard to safe drinking water. At the same time, the multilateral and bilateral development agencies should review their current water sector activities within each one of these key countries with an aim to improved coordination and performance. With this approach, the essential political will can be generated and the scarce resources targeted to assure that there is real progress in addressing this need.

Toward a New Paradigm

While it is tempting to attribute continuing difficulties with provision of safe drinking water and stemming population growth to lack of information, technology, or financing, the major impediment to progress appears to be the lack of political will and genuine commitment at the national level. In fact, there are a relatively small number of countries whose leadership fails in its responsibilities and thus are creating and driving what have come to be thought of as "global trends."

These are not technological or financial problems: the technology is more than adequate and international lending institutions and bilateral development agencies are spending significant sums of money on these issues—and are ready to contribute yet more. Instead it is up to the leaders of key nations to make sincere commitments to this issue. These nations are included within the following three groups:

• The Big Five: 5 countries that account for the majority of the population without access to safe drinking water.

• The Sliders: 35 countries where access to safe drinking water has decreased in either urban or rural areas.

• The Population Bombers: 19 countries whose population growth rate is projected to be at 3 percent or above.

The Big Five: A brief review of the most recent figures on access to safe drinking water provided by the World Bank and the UN indicate that the majority of safe drinking water problems appear to be concentrated in just five nations:

(The high estimates come from the World Bank’s World Development Report 1997 and World Development Indicators 1997, and the low estimates come from the United Nation’s The State of World Population 1997)

Any international effort to greatly enhance the gross number of people with access to safe drinking water must focus upon and fully involve these key countries which account for the majority of the people without safe drinking water. Relying simply on the statistical numbers, of the more than one billion people who lack access to safe drinking water, at least half and possibly more live in just these five countries: China, India, Indonesia, Pakistan, and Nigeria. Access to safe drinking water will continue to be a huge problem without the political commitment and engagement of the leaders of these nations.

The Sliders: The scenario of population growth, leading to degradation of water resources, leading to disease and low child survival rates, leading to population growth is most illustratively borne out in urban centers, where population densities are highest. The United Nations has noted that:

water-related disease is particularly acute in [these] urban communities. In 1985, at least 25 per cent of urban communities (and 58 per cent of rural communities) were without clean water for sanitation needs. As the countryside around cities like Manila and Panama City loses its tree cover, so too the domestic water supplies decline in quantity and quality. In turn, human communities face a growing threat of contaminated-water pandemics. Similarly, public-health programmes in Bangkok, Nairobi, Lagos and Abidjan, among other conurbations of the humid tropics, are being set back because their water supplies are declining in the wake of deforestation in upland catchments. (UNFPA, 1991, p.36)

According to the World Bank’s World Development Indicators 1997 between 1985 and 1993, 24 countries have seen their urban population’s access to safe drinking water decrease. These countries are: Colombia, Ecuador, Ethiopia, The Gambia, Guatemala, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Haiti, Jamaica, Jordan, Madagascar, Mali, Mauritania, Mozambique, Nepal, Nicaragua, Saudi Arabia, Tanzania, Togo, Trinidad and Tobago, United Arab Emirates, Uruguay, Venezuela, and Zimbabwe. Graphic 1 illustrates the best and worst performing nations between this period.

It should come as no surprise that most of the countries that saw a decline in urban access to safe drinking water also has a high rate of urbanization. It should also come as no surprise that many are in Africa, considering that Africa, with an urban growth rate of 4 per cent per year, is urbanizing faster than any other world region.

Meanwhile, thirteen countries have seen their rural population’s access to water decrease between 1985 and 1993. They are Bolivia, Botswana, Cameroon, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Gabon, Madagascar, Nigeria, Saudia Arabia, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, Tanzania, and United Arab Emirates. Graphic 2 shows the five countries that experienced the largest decline in percentage of rural population with access to safe drinking water.

The Population Bombers: It should be noted, that while rapid urban growth already appears to be straining the drinking water infrastructure of cities the world over, the situation in rural areas is poised to degenerate in the next few years as well: according to the United Nations’ The State of World Population 1997, the 19 countries with the world’s highest population growth rate projections between 1995 and 2000 are largely rural, and many already are experiencing drinking water problems.

While the world’s average population growth rate projection between 1995 and 2000 is 1.4%, each of these 19 countries has a growth rate at or above 3 percent: Eritrea (3.7), Ethiopia (3.2), Madagascar (3.1), Rwanda (7.9), Somalia (3.9), Angola (3.3), Libya (3.3), Liberia (8.6), Mali (3.0), Niger (3.3), Sierra Leone (3.0), Laos (3.1), Afghanistan (5.3), Jordan (3.3), Kuwait (3.0), Oman (4.2), Saudi Arabia (3.4), Yemen (3.7), and Bosnia & Herzegovina (3.9).

Of these 19 countries, statistics for contraceptive prevalence are only available for 13. The UN defines contraceptive prevalence as the best estimate of the "proportion of married women (including women in consensual unions) currently using…any method…of contraception." (UN, State of the World Population, p.75) The world average for contraceptive prevalence (using any method) is 57%. Not surprisingly, of these 13 countries, not a single one has a contraceptive prevalence higher than 35 percent, and the average for the group is 13 percent. Of these 13 countries, UN information on access to safe drinking water is only available for 8. Interestingly, however, only three of these eight provided safe drinking water for more than 50% of their populations, and the average for the group is a meager 44 percent. Without better access to and use of contraception and safe drinking water, as well as education, these populations will continue to grow explosively.

Recommendations for a New Approach

The United Nations should not adopt yet another detailed abstract plan on safe drinking water nor encourage all nations to develop their own such plans. Instead, the UN CSD should establish a forum to review the prospects for making real progress, particularly in the key countries.

Each of these nations should be invited to make a presentation on its efforts and plans to address safe drinking water and population issues, including identification of barriers and needs so that serious progress can be achieved. These efforts and plans should emphasize the latest thinking in the safe drinking water field including, but not limited to: demand responsive project designs, transboundary project designs, protection of watersheds and catchment areas, hygiene education, and family planning.

There should be an expectation that the each Head of Government would make a clear commitment to increased attention and investment in regard to safe drinking water. Each national government should also designate a ministerial or higher level official responsible for developing, coordinating, and monitoring the implementation of a national effort. At the same time, the multilateral and bilateral development agencies should review their current water sector activities within each one of these key countries with an aim to improved coordination and performance.

At the Earth Summit Plus 5 in June, there was recognition of the need to build upon the body of existing statements and declarations and on the importance of producing tangible results in regard to fresh water. Now it is up to United Nations to create a new paradigm where governments are expected and encouraged to act on their rhetoric. Otherwise the prospects for make real progress on access to freshwater and other objectives of sustainable development will remain dim.

Sources

AGI

The Alan Guttmacher Institute, Hopes and Realities: Closing the Gap Between Women’s Aspirations and Their Reproductive Experiences (AGI, New York, 1995).

World Bank, WDI

World Bank, World Development Indicators 1997 (International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/The World Bank, Washington D.C., 1997).

World Bank, WDR

World Bank, World Development Report 1997 (International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/The World Bank, Washington D.C., 1997).

UNCSD, Trends

United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development, Global Change and Sustainable Development: Critical Trends: Report of the Secretary General (Department of Policy Coordination and Sustainable Development, New York, New York, Fifth Session, 7-25 April).

UNCSD, Assessment

United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development, Comprehensive Assessment of the Freshwater Resources of the World: Report of the Secretary General (Fifth Session, New York, New York, 5-25 April 1997, E/CN.17/1997/9).

UNFPA, 1991

United Nations Population Fund, Population, Resources and the Environment: The Critical Challenges (UNFPA, London, 1991).

UNFPA, 1997

United Nations Population Fund, The State of World Population, 1997 (UNFPA, New York, 1997).

UNGASS, 1997

United Nations General Assembly Special Session, 23-27 June 1997, Programme for the Further Implementation of Agenda 21 (UN PCSD, Advance Unedited Text, 1 July 1997, gopher://gopher.un.org:70/ga/docs/S-19/plenary/ES5.TXT)

WaterPartners International

WaterPartners International Homepage, 1997: http://www.water.org/.