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AMSTERDAM, the Netherlands—The World Health Organization
(WHO) has alerted countries, especially those in the
developing world, that their government must recognize
the urgency and importance of access to safe water and
basic sanitation for their people if they are to achieve
the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
At the
recent “Water and Sanitation for All” workshop held in
the University of Delft in the Netherlands, it said the
primary need is to reduce by half the proportion of
people living without access to improved sanitation and
safe water by 2015.
“All
governments, especially in the developing countries,
should identify and address the key issues in their
countries, and coordinate with their many national
stakeholders to accelerate progress toward universal
sanitation,” said Jamie Bartram, coordinator of WHO’s
water, sanitation and health program.
Bartram,
a speaker at the workshop, cited the need for local
sustainable and affordable solutions to address the
challenge. “While coverage has been advancing in many
countries, recent estimates consistently show the
sanitation component of the MDG sanitation target to be
off-track.”
Globally, 1 billion people are without access to
improved water supply and 2.6 billion have no form of
improved sanitation services. Most of these people live
in
Asia and
Africa. In
Africa, for example, 2 out of 5 people lack improved water supply.
A WHO
report issued on January 1 this year finds that in the
MDG sanitation target there is “a projected shortfall of
550 million people in 2015, from target achievement.”
The
estimated total spending, excluding program costs,
required in developing countries to meet the water
component of the MDG target is $42 billion, and for
sanitation $142 billion, according to the report. This
translates to per-capita spending of $8 for water and
$28 for sanitation or an annual combined total of $18
billion.
Developing countries in the WHO Western Pacific Region
need 48 percent of the total spending to meet the MDG
target for water, and 28 percent in the WHO African
Region. For sanitation the picture is different, with
the WHO Western Pacific Region and WHO Southeast Asia
strata D requiring 30 percent of total spending each,
and in the WHO African Region 24 percent.
The UN
General Assembly in December 2006 established The
International Year of Sanitation 2008 to accelerate
progress toward meeting the MDG target of reducing by
half the proportion of people living without access to
improved sanitation by 2015.
“It is
important to set targets on sanitation as well from
global objectives to national plans. We need to push up
the benchmark and push on progress whichever is relevant
to all countries,” said Bartram.
Kalanithy Vairavamoorthy from the Unesco-IHE Institute
for Water Education in Delft said that in order to meet
the MDG sanitation target, 1.6 billion more people need
to gain access to improved sanitation over the coming
decade.
“Unfortunately, it is unlikely that this target will be
met. Providing adequate water and basic sanitation is
likely to become more challenging to governments
throughout the world in the near future due to several
global change pressures,” Vairavamoorthy told the
BusinessMirror.
Among
the three major pressures Vairavamoorthy mentioned is
climate change, which is predicted to cause significant
changes in precipitation and temperature patterns that
will reduce the quality and volume of water
availability.
The
second is population growth and urbanization leading to
a dramatic increase in high-quality water consumption,
while the discharge of insufficiently treated wastewater
increases costs for downstream users and has detrimental
effects on the aquatic systems.
Finally,
there’s the aging and deteriorating water-related
infrastructure, where there is a technological and
financial challenge to maintain and upgrade in such a
way that quality water can continue to be delivered to
all sectors and wastewater can be adequately collected
and treated. |
