A woman carries a container of water in San Mateo, Guatemala. Credit: UN Photo/Antoinette Jongen

By Roger Hamilton-Martin
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 10 2015 (IPS)

Ahead of the all-important International Financing for Development Conference in Addis Ababa, a top water charity has called upon world leaders to prioritise programmes for water, sanitation and good hygiene, so that no one is left behind.

WaterAid’s new report, ‘Essential Element’, identifies 45 high-priority countries which have been left behind in financing for water, sanitation and hygiene programmes.

In a statement, WaterAid Director of Global Policy and Campaigns, Margaret Batty, said, “As government representatives from around the world travel to Addis Ababa, they have a once-in-a-generation chance to tackle extreme poverty and help more children grow up to reach their full potential.

“Safe water and basic toilets create healthier communities, and spare women and girls their long and difficult journeys to fetch water and the indignity and insecurity of having to find a private place to relieve themselves when there is no toilet.”

In each of the 45 high-priority countries identified by WaterAid, half or more of the population does not have a basic, safe place to defecate – polluting the water supply and general environment. As a result their citizens are at high risk of contracting waterborne diseases as well as pandemic illnesses.

The report calls for countries to “look ahead at the challenges that will have a major impact on delivering universal access to water, sanitation and hygiene”, including inequalities between countries, climate change and stress on water resources.

The report demonstrates that for many countries, aid will be a vital international resource to support the achievement of universal access to water, sanitation and hygiene.

When world leaders gather in the Ethiopian capital on Monday, July 13, to hash out the Addis Accord, it is critical they include a strong focus on equity and sustainability of services, says WaterAid. According to the charity, this must incorporate action to address financial absorption and human resource constraints.

The Addis conference will bring together thousands of politicians, lobbyists, policymakers and businesses for five days, in the first of three 2015 summits to work out where money will come from to fund development processes beginning this year. The new U.N. Sustainable Development Goals are to be finalised in New York this September.

Currently, roughly 1,400 children die around the world every day from diseases caused by dirty water and poor sanitation. More than 660 million people are without safe water, and nearly 2.4 billion are without adequate sanitation, or one in three in the world.

Edited by Kitty Stapp

Children investigate their community's newly improved toilets, one of UNOCI's “quick impact projects” (QIPS) which supported the rehabilitation of schools and toilets in Abidjan. Credit: UN Photo/Patricia Esteve

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Jun 30 2015 (IPS)

As most developing nations fall short of meeting their goals on sanitation, the world’s poorest countries have been lagging far behind, according to a new U.N. report released here.

The Joint Monitoring Programme report, ‘Progress on Sanitation and Drinking Water: 2015 Update and MDG Assessment’, authored by the U.N. children’s agency UNICEF and the World Health Organisation (WHO), says one in three people, or 2.4 billion worldwide, are still without sanitation facilities – including 946 million people who defecate in the open.“We cannot have another situation where we appear to be succeeding because the situation of the comparatively wealthy has improved, even as millions of people are still falling ill from dirty water or from environments that are contaminated with faeces." -- Tim Brewer of WaterAid

“What the data really show is the need to focus on inequalities as the only way to achieve sustainable progress,” said Sanjay Wijesekera, head of UNICEF’s global water, sanitation and hygiene programmes.

“The global model so far has been that the wealthiest move ahead first, and only when they have access do the poorest start catching up. If we are to reach universal access to sanitation by 2030, we need to ensure the poorest start making progress right away,” he said.

Pointing out the existing inequities, the report says progress on sanitation has been hampered by inadequate investments in behaviour change campaigns, lack of affordable products for the poor, and social norms which accept or even encourage open defecation.

Although some 2.1 billion people have gained access to improved sanitation since 1990, the world has missed the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) target by nearly 700 million people.

Today, only 68 per cent of the world’s population uses an improved sanitation facility – 9 percentage points below the MDG target of 77 per cent.

Still, the world has made “spectacular progress” in water, Jeffrey O’Malley, Director, Data, at UNICEF’s Research and Policy Division, told reporters Tuesday.

In 2015, 91 percent of the global population used an improved drinking water source, up from 76 percent in 1990, while 6.6 billion people have access to improved drinking water.

The total without access globally is now 663 million, almost a 100 million fewer than last year’s estimate, and the first time the number has fallen below 700 million.

As the MDGs expire this year, the goal on water has been met overall, but with wide gaps remaining, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa.

The goal on sanitation, however, has failed dramatically. At present rates of progress it would take 300 years for everyone in Sub-Saharan Africa to get access to a sanitary toilet, said the report.

Tim Brewer, Policy Analyst on Monitoring and Accountability at the London-based WaterAid, told IPS the MDG goal on water was met largely because of those who were easiest to reach.

“The poorest are often still being left behind. What we need to do in the new U.N. Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), now under negotiation, is to make sure that progress for the poorest is made the headline figure.”

“We cannot have another situation where we appear to be succeeding because the situation of the comparatively wealthy has improved, even as millions of people are still falling ill from dirty water or from environments that are contaminated with faeces,” he noted.

Brewer said monitoring is key: “We need to measure basic access for the poor, as well as measuring other indicators such as whether water is safe and affordable, and whether wastewater is safely treated.”

“This is the only way to make sure we reach everyone, everywhere by 2030 and hold governments accountable to their promises,” he argued.

In countries like Japan and South Korea, according to published reports, sanitation is far beyond a basic necessity: it has the trappings of luxury with piped in music, automatic flushing, and in some cases, scenic window views — even while millions in developing nations defecate openly in nearby rural jungles or on rail tracks (with their bowel movements apparently being coordinated with train schedules, according to a New York Times report.)

The practice of open defecation is also linked to a higher risk of stunting – or chronic malnutrition – which affects 161 million children worldwide, leaving them with irreversible physical and cognitive damage.

“To benefit human health it is vital to further accelerate progress on sanitation, particularly in rural and underserved areas,” says Dr Maria Neira, Director of the WHO Department of Public Health, Environmental and Social Determinants of Health.

Asked if it would be realistic for sanitation goals to be rolled into the proposed SDGs with a target date of 2030, UNICEF’s Wijesekera told IPS that an even more ambitious sanitation target is suggested for the new SDG agenda – to eliminate open defecation and achieve universal access to sanitation.

“I think the goal of achieving universal access to sanitation by 2030 is possible, but only if we start focusing on the poorest and most vulnerable right now (rather than waiting for the wealthiest to gain access first, as has historically been the case).”

He said: “We can also learn from the successes of the past 25 years, and especially the last 15. A number of countries have made rapid gains during the MDG era.’

For example, he pointed out, Ethiopia has reduced open defecation rates by 64 percentage points and Thailand has closed the gap in access between the richest and the poorest.

This shows what is possible when countries recognise the importance of tackling inequalities in access to Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH), thus unlocking wider benefits in health, nutrition, education and economic productivity, he noted.

Asked how the sanitation problem can be resolved, Wijesekera told IPS: “Sanitation is not rocket science; most developed countries take it for granted.”

“But our experience on the ground in developing countries shows that it is not just a question of governments investing money and technology. It is also about changing ordinary people’s attitudes and behaviours, and this takes time,” he said.

Sanitation can best be addressed by countries establishing and investing in people and systems at a local level to change people’s behaviours, and to get the private sector engaged in providing affordable and good quality products and services for the poor.

This, he said, needs to be led by countries themselves, and donors, international organisations and the private sector all have a role in providing financing and expertise.

He also said there is a growing awareness of the importance of sanitation as a foundation for human and economic development.

World leaders – from the U.N. Secretary-General, to the President of the World Bank, to the Prime Minister of India – are all talking about it.

“We need to translate this high level political support into action in order for all people to have access to what is theirs as a human right: clean drinking water and adequate sanitation,” said Wijesekera.

Edited by Kitty Stapp

The writer can be contacted at thalifdeen@aol.com

Floods in Morigaon, India submerged about 45 roads in October 2014. Most people wade through the water, believing this is quicker than waiting for a rickety boat to transport them across. Credit: Priyanka Borpujari/IPS

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Jun 9 2015 (IPS)

As the United Nations continues its negotiations to both define and refine a new set of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) before a summit meeting of world leaders in September, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has expressed support for a new “International Decade for Water for Sustainable Development.”

“It would complement and support the achievement of the proposed Sustainable Development Goals – for water,” he said.“A dedicated Sustainable Development Goal, explicitly addressing the multifaceted nature of water - as a social issue, an economic issue, an environmental issue, as well as the main cause of disasters on our planet – is an imperative." -- Torgny Holmgren

The proposal for a new International Decade, which has to be eventually approved by the 193-member General Assembly, was initiated Tuesday by the president of Tajikistan, Emomali Rahmon, at a ‘Water for Life” high-level international conference in the capital of Dushanbe.

Tajikistan, which has taken a leading role in highlighting the significance of water as a source of life, also sponsored the International Decade of Water For Life (2005-2015) “to raise awareness and galvanize action.”

The proposed new International Decade will be a successor to Water for Life which concludes in December this year.

Ban told delegates water’s place in the SDGs go well beyond access — taking into account critical issues such as integrated water resources management, efficiency of use, water quality, transboundary cooperation, water-related ecosystems, and water-related disasters.

“Water, like other areas of the post-2015 development agenda, is intricately interconnected with other challenges,” he noted.

John Garrett, senior policy analyst of development finance at the London-based WaterAid, told IPS: “We at WaterAid are glad to see U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon highlighting in Tajikistan the human right to water and sanitation, and the enormous need that still exists for these essential services among the world’s poorest and most marginalised populations.”

The new SDGs, he pointed out, represent a once-in-a-generation chance to reach everyone, everywhere with clean water, decent toilets and a way to keep themselves and their surroundings clean.

“A new decade for action on Water for Sustainable Development would continue a much-needed focus on the enormous challenges ahead,” he said.

However, he cautioned, the action should also focus on sanitation and hygiene, because without these, clean water is neither achievable nor sustainable, and neither are the health benefits nor economic progress that results.

Over the years, the United Nations has continued to place water-related issues on its socio-economic agenda: the first-ever International Year of Water Cooperation; World Water Day commemorated every year on Mar. 22; and the annual World Toilet Day on Nov. 19.

Ban said the world achieved the Millennium Development Goal target for safe and sustainable drinking water five years ahead of schedule.

In the course of one generation, 2.3 billion people – one-third of humanity – have gained access to an improved drinking water source.

The United Nations General Assembly declared access to clean drinking water and safe sanitation to be a human right, he pointed out.

Torgny Holmgren, executive director at the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI), told IPS his organisation welcomes Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s strong support for water as a key ingredient in all efforts towards sustainable development.

It is clear that the global community increasingly realises the challenges caused by growing water stress and unwise water management, he added.

“A dedicated Sustainable Development Goal, explicitly addressing the multifaceted nature of water – as a social issue, an economic issue, an environmental issue, as well as the main cause of disasters on our planet – is an imperative, but by no means sufficient, step towards the world we want.”

It is therefore particularly inspiring, he said, to see Ban’s encouragement for a process beyond the SDGs – “a process that allows and requires the involvement of all sectors and actors, public and private, individuals and organisations to collectively take a giant leap towards a water wise world.”

Garrett of WaterAid told IPS progress in the next decade will be critical and “we welcome efforts to keep these issues in the spotlight”.

The Millennium Development Goals succeeded in halving the number of people in the world without improved water, but left many of those most in need without.

Sanitation is among the most off-track of those goals. “We must refocus efforts in the next decade to ensure no one is left behind.”

Ban said sanitation has also made progress during the Decade, with more than 1.9 billion people gaining access to improved sanitation.

“That is all good news. Yet we also know that even today, in the 21st century, some 2.5 billion people still lack access to adequate sanitation”, while some one billion people still practice open defecation.

Even today, in the 21st century, nearly 1,000 children under the age of five are killed each day by a toxic mix of unsafe drinking water, poor sanitation and hygiene, he said.

And inadequate water supply and sanitation cost economies about 260 billion dollars worldwide every year.

Just 10 years from now, 1.8 billion people will live in areas with absolute water scarcity, and two out of three people around the world could live under water-stressed conditions.

“It is little wonder that many global experts have called the ‘water crisis’ one of the greatest global risks that we face,” warned Ban.

Edited by Kitty Stapp

The writer can be contacted at thalifdeen@aol.com

Sanitation infrastructure in India’s sprawling slums remains a massive challenge. Credit: Malini Shankar/IPS

By Neeraj Jain
NEW DELHI, Feb 24 2015 (IPS)

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s call to action for a 100 percent Open Defecation Free (ODF) India by 2019 was announced as part of the Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) or Clean India Campaign last year.

With 60 percent of all those practising open defecation globally residing in India, this task is particularly crucial, yet also challenging.We need to think how we are going to engage and influence the behaviour of such a massive audience. It probably requires the most ambitious behaviour change campaign ever attempted in the history of any nation.

Inadequate waste management leads to the contamination of water sources, contributing to diarrhoeal diseases that claim the lives of 186,000 children every single year.

With nowhere safe to go to the toilet, women and girls are often put in a vulnerable position as they seek somewhere private to relieve themselves.

A lack of adequate sanitation also has a substantial impact on economic development, with money repeatedly being lost due to workers being sick or taking time off to care for sick family members, not to mention the cost of medical treatment.

So is the 2019 target actually achievable?

It may sound like a tall order but we won’t know until we try. We need to look at the ways to make it work – implement this seemingly ambitious plan in an effective manner to make the target achievable. Not just admit defeat before we start.

The recent pace of the activities under the SBM suggests that India would become clean by 2070. To achieve the target around 50,000 toilets need to be built every day, without compromising on quality.

So it’s high time that we stop focussing on the problems and start discussing possible solutions.

With this in mind, WaterAid India organised an India WASH Summit in New Delhi last week. It was the first of its kind and was aimed at devising solutions to India’s sanitation crisis and shaping future collaboration to achieve Swachh Bharat’s ambitious target of a toilet for every household by Oct. 2, 2019. 

This landmark event, organised in partnership with the Ministry of Drinking Water & Sanitation and Ministry of Urban Development, brought together the government, the private sector and civil society groups working to make clean India a reality.

The summit concluded with the creation of a concrete set of recommendations to be shared with the government of India to help in the effective implementation of the SBM across a number of themes including behaviour, equity and inclusion, gender, water security, institutional transformation, technology, research, and convergence of nutrition, health and education.

Collaboration emerged as a key theme at the summit, both within the sector as well as with organisations focussing on nutrition, health and education. Participants at the summit stressed the importance of capacity building and the need for effective monitoring.

It was agreed that sanitation should be acknowledged as a basic human right. To ensure success in getting sanitation for all, programmes need to be equitable and inclusive and should include behaviour change at its core.

Previous initiatives have taught us that just building toilets is not enough. To stimulate demand for toilets, hygiene education and collective initiatives are key.

We need to think how we are going to engage and influence the behaviour of such a massive audience. It probably requires the most ambitious behaviour change campaign ever attempted in the history of any nation.

The overall budget of the programme (rural as well as urban) as estimated by the government is almost Rs. 3 lakh crores (50 billion dollars).

I believe that answers to all hurdles identified above do exist but the entire WASH (water, sanitation and hygiene) sector need to come together to find the most suitable answers as well as the most effective ways to implement it, in record time.

WaterAid has been working in the WASH sector in India since 1986 and is committed to supporting the government of India in realising the ambitious but much needed goal of making India open defecation free by Mahatma Gandhi’s 150th birth anniversary in October 2019.

Edited by Kitty Stapp

Excerpt:

A water kiosk in Blantyre, Malawi. Activists argue that water and sanitation must be a stand-alone goal in the post-2015 framework. Credit: Charles Mpaka/IPS

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 15 2014 (IPS)

The United Nations is on the verge of releasing a new set of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) – perhaps 17 or more – to replace the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) which will run out by the end of 2015.

The proposed new SDGs, which will make amends for the shortcomings of the MDGs, will be an integral part of the U.N.’s post-2015 development agenda which, among other things, seeks to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger from the face of the earth by 2030."Why not have a target to close down all tax havens by 2020?" -- Jens Martens

Neelie Kroes of the European Commission says the new development agenda is being described as “the most far-reaching and comprehensive development-related endeavour ever undertaken by the United Nations in its entire history.”

But Jens Martens, director of the Global Policy Forum, told IPS that in general, the current list of proposed goals and targets is not an adequate response to the global social, economic and environmental crises and the need for fundamental change.

The proposed SDG list, he pointed out, contains a mix of recycled old commitments and vaguely formulated new ones (such as the goal 1.a. to “ensure significant mobilization of resources from a variety of sources to provide adequate and predictable means to implement programmes and policies to end poverty in all its dimensions.”).

According to some development experts, the world’s rich nations have mostly failed to meet their obligations on MDG target 8 which called for a “global partnership for development” between developed and developing nations.

As the Geneva-based South Centre points out, “The SDGs should not be a set of goals for only developing countries to undertake as a kind of conditionality or new obligations.”

The Rio-plus-20 outcome document, adopted at an international conference in Brazil in 2012, specifically said the new goals should be “universally applicable to all countries,” including developed countries.

The 17 new goals, as crafted by an open-ended working group (OWG), include proposals to end poverty, eliminate hunger, attain healthy lives, provide quality education, attain gender equality and reduce inequalities.

The list also includes the sustainable use of water and sanitation, energy for all, productive employment, industrialisation, protection of terrestrial ecosystems and strengthening the global partnership for sustainable development.

The OWG is currently holding its 13th – and perhaps final – round of negotiations ending Friday, after which a report is to be submitted to the General Assembly in August.

The final set of goals is to be approved by world leaders in September 2015.

Until then, said one senior U.N. official, “there may be plenty of deletes and inserts.”

Martens told IPS governments should not repeat the mistake of MDG 8 on “global partnership”, which was formulated so vaguely it did not imply any binding commitments for the North.

“What we need instead are measurable goals for the rich,” said Martens, who has been monitoring the last 12 sessions of the OWG.

He said any post-2015 agenda must address the structural obstacles and political barriers that prevented the realisation of the MDGs, such as unfair trade and investment rules (including the investor-state dispute settlement mechanism) and the problems of tax evasion and tax avoidance by TNCs and wealthy individuals.

“Why not have a target to close down all tax havens by 2020?” he asked.

Among activist groups, there was widespread criticism that water and sanitation was not a “stand alone goal” in the current MDGs but only a secondary goal under Goal 7 on “environmental sustainability.”

Nadya Kassam, global head of campaigns at the London-based WaterAid, told IPS, “We believe water and sanitation must be a stand-alone goal for the post-2015 framework, and we are encouraged by what we’ve seen so far.”

She said it is unthinkable that water, sanitation and hygiene could not be included – they are critical to so many other outcomes such as good health, education and economic growth.

U.N. Deputy Secretary General Jan Eliasson has made the importance of sanitation clear, with his campaign to end open defecation, which WaterAid strongly supports.

After nearly 15 years on from the MDGs, the original goal on water to halve the proportion of people without has been reached globally. Yet coverage in sub-Saharan Africa remains poor, with 36 percent of the population still living without this essential service.

Kassam said access to sanitation is lagging the furthest behind, and at the current rates of progress, it would take sub-Saharan Africa, as a region, over 150 years just to reach the existing goal of halving the proportion of people without.

“So water, and in particular sanitation, need to be of central importance going forward,” she said.

Martens said it is a positive signal that the current draft list of proposed SDGs contains a goal on reducing inequality within and between countries.

“It will be of utmost importance that this goal does not get lost in the final phase of the negotiations,” he stressed.

However, it would not be sufficient to just have a single goal on inequality — each SDG should have targets and indicators on distribution and inequality, Martens said.

Meanwhile in a statement released Monday, Reporters Without Borders said there was “heated discussion and opposition from certain OWG members such as Russia, Cuba and China” on a proposed SDG covering media and information.

The protection of the right to information is in danger of being weakened or disappearing altogether, to be replaced by a vague reference to freedom of expression, the statement added.

At the Millennium Summit held in New-York in September 2000, 189 U.N. member-states adopted the Millennium Declaration based on the outcomes of several international conferences of the 1990s, including population, human rights, the environment, habitat and social development.

A year later, in August 2001, the U.N. Secretariat released the eight MDGs.

But the goals were devised not by governments through an open debate but by a working committee drawn from several U.N. bodies, including the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (MF), the U.N. children’s agency UNICEF, the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA), the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)

The goals were not the object of a formal resolution of the U.N. General Assembly.

The eight MDGs included eradication of extreme poverty and hunger, achieving universal primary education, promoting gender equality, reducing child mortality, improving maternal health, combating HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases, ensuring environmental sustainability and developing a global partnership for development.

A woman from Pune, Timor-Leste, collects water for her home. The U.N. study singles out the increased access to drinking water sources, an improvement in the lives of slum dwellers and the achievement of gender parity in primary schools. Credit: UN Photo/Martine Perret

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 7 2014 (IPS)

With 17 months before the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) reach their targets by the December 2015 deadline, the United Nations is trumpeting its limited successes – but with guarded optimism.

“Global poverty has been halved five years ahead of the 2015 time frame,” says Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in the latest status report released Monday."Unfortunately, the trend in the U.N. secretary-general's office and many developed countries is to place hopes in private corporations and 'multi-stakeholder partnerships' that fudge the massive problems caused by many corporations." -- Yoke Ling Chee

In 1990, almost half of the population in developing regions lived on less than 1.25 dollars a day.

“This rate dropped to 22 percent by 2010, reducing the number of people living in extreme poverty by 700 million,” the study claims.

Still, the overwhelming majority of people living in extreme poverty belong to two regions: Southern Asia and sub-Saharan African, according to the 56-page Millennium Development Goals Report 2014.

But some of the non-governmental organisations (NGOs) closely tracking trends in social and economic development in the developing world are sceptical of the claims.

Roberto Bissio, director of the Uruguay-based Social Watch, told IPS the global average the United Nations celebrates is almost exclusively due to China – and most of that poverty reduction in China happened before the year 2000.

“Thus the MDGs are credited with outcomes that happened before they existed,” he said.

“This is because the target is defined as lowering to half the 1990 global poverty line, not the 2000 figure as the Millennium Declaration implies by talking in present,” Bissio added.

The study singles out the increased access to drinking water sources, an improvement in the lives of slum dwellers and the achievement of gender parity in primary schools.

“If trends continue,” says the report, “the world will surpass MDG targets on malaria, tuberculosis and access to HIV treatment (while) the hunger target looks within reach.”

Other targets, such as access to technologies, reduction of average tariffs, debt relief, and growing political participation by women, “show great progress.”

Over the past 20 years, the likelihood of a child dying before age five has been nearly cut in half, which means about 17,000 children are saved every day, according to the report.

Yoke Ling Chee of the Malaysia-based Third World Network told IPS the MDG report is “over optimistic”, and avoids the systemic obstacles that continue to deprive large parts of the world from their right to development.

“A much-needed orderly sovereign debt work-out mechanism is still rejected by rich countries and we see Argentina on the verge of another crisis because of the greed of ‘vulture funds,'” she said.

Failure to deal with structural barriers can negate any success made over the past two decades.

“Unfortunately,” she pointed out, “the trend in the U.N. Secretary-General’s office and many developed countries is to place hopes in private corporations and ‘multi-stakeholder partnerships’ that fudge the massive problems caused by many corporations.

“The vote on Jun. 26 at the Human Rights Council to start a process for a treaty to regulate transnational corporations is a clear signal that if we are to make development a reality, corporations cannot be the deliverer,” she added.

In a statement released Monday, the London-based WaterAid said the U.N. report is a reminder of a terrible truth: that there are still 2.5 billion people in the world without access to basic toilets.

Of the 2.5 billion, 644 million are in sub-Saharan Africa and more than 1.0 billion in South Asia.

“Going without this right is compromising the health, safety, security and dignity of billions of people,” said Fleur Anderson, global head of campaigns at WaterAid.

As the U.N. works on a renewed set of development goals, it is critical that sanitation be made a central priority in development, activists say.

For the first time in history, bringing safe water and basic sanitation to everyone, everywhere within a generation “is in our grasp”, Anderson stressed. “But it will require political will and dedication to get there. Without these basic building blocks, there is no effective way to address extreme poverty,” she added.

Bissio told IPS that by concentrating attention on extreme poverty, developed countries got off the hook and do not feel they have to report on their own commitments at home.

Poverty in developed countries is ignored and inequalities are ignored everywhere, resulting in this being the major constraint now to economic growth (apart from all other considerations) as recognised even by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), he noted.

The study also points out that after two years of declines, official development assistance (ODA) hit a record high of 134.8 billion dollars in 2013.

“However, aid shifted away from the poorest countries where attainment of the MDGs often lags the most,” it said.

Eighty per cent of imports from developing countries entered developed countries duty-free, and tariffs remained at an all-time low.

The debt burden of developing countries remained stable at about 3.0 per cent of export revenue, which was a near 75 per cent drop since 2000, according to the report.

Despite considerable advancements in recent years, the report says reliable statistics for monitoring development remain inadequate in many countries, but better statistical reporting on the MDGs has led to real results.

Chee told IPS the explosion of transnational corporations (TNCs) suing national governments in developing countries over environmental and health regulations by invoking corporate rights under bilateral investment agreements is sucking billions of dollars from those countries, she added.

She also pointed out that developing countries that made some progress and continue to face huge challenges are increasingly excluded from the commitments of developed countries to provide climate finance, ensure access to affordable life saving medicines and transfer technologies for sustainable development.

This is because countries such as China and India are regarded as “competitors” by the U.S.

European corporations assert undue influence over their home governments’ development cooperation policies, which in turn undermines the key U.N. treaties on climate change and biodiversity, she said.

The ongoing negotiations at the U.N. on sustainable development goals are mired in debate because developed countries refuse to put the systemic economic issues at the centre of the next development partnership – which should be primarily about inter-state responsibilities and commitments, not unaccountable “partnerships,” Chee declared.

In Nepal, 38 percent of the population still defecates in the open. Credit: Naresh Newar/IPS

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, May 28 2014 (IPS)

At the height of his election campaign last October, Narendra Modi, India’s Hindu nationalist leader, briefly set aside his spiritual aspirations when he told a surprised audience that economic development should take precedence over religion.

“Toilets before temples,” pleaded Modi, the newly-elected prime minister of India, a country which has been in the throes of a perpetual sanitation crisis, and where open defecation is an all-too-common sight in villages and urban slums.

As chief minister of the state of Gujarat, Modi oversaw the installation of some 76,000 lavatories in schools “so that more girls could study,” according to an article in the Economist last month.

"The situation [...] is most difficult in India where there are nearly 800 million people without basic sanitation, and 600 million of those are still practising open defecation." -- Barbara Frost, chief executive at the London-based WaterAid
As if taking its cue from Modi, or by happy coincidence, the United Nations Wednesday formally launched a global campaign to help improve access to toilets for the 2.5 billion people without basic level sanitation.

“It is time to talk about open defecation,” said U.N. Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson, “and to discuss the facts, the consequences and the solutions.”

And it is time to talk about the many countries around the world where community members, local leaders and politicians are taking positive action to end this practice, he added.

According to the United Nations, about 82 percent of the 1.1 billion people practising open defecation live in just 10 countries: India, Indonesia, Pakistan, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Sudan, Niger, Nepal, China and Mozambique.

By 2025, the practice of open defecation must be totally eliminated, the United Nations has vowed.

Barbara Frost, chief executive at the London-based WaterAid, told IPS South Asia still has the most people without basic sanitation, more than one billion in 2012, although sub-Saharan Africa also has a large number, just fewer than 644 million.

“The situation by sheer numbers is most difficult in India where there are nearly 800 million people without basic sanitation, and 600 million of those are still practising open defecation,” she said.

In sub-Saharan Africa, Nigeria is bucking the trend and has seen large increases in open defecation between 2000 and 2012.

“Many African nations are seeing the number of people without basic sanitation drop, but in Nigeria this is increasing,” Frost said.

Chris Williams, executive director at the Geneva-based Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council (WSSCC), told IPS open defecation is a serious health risk in the world’s poorer countries, spreading disease, effecting economic productivity and claiming lives unnecessarily.

“People who do not have access to a hygienic toilet and a place to wash their hands are exposed to an array of faecally transmissible and potentially deadly diseases that with improved sanitation are easily preventable,” he said.

“That is why we have to make equitable access to improved sanitation a key priority in the post-2015 development agenda,” Williams added.

He also said sanitation and hygiene are motors which drive health, and social and economic development around the world.

“An environment that lacks sanitation and clean water is an environment where achieving other development goals is an impossible dream,” declared Williams.

Mark Neo, deputy permanent representative of Singapore, a country that spearheaded the move to declare Nov. 19 ‘World Toilet Day’ at the United Nations, told IPS the lack of basic sanitation profoundly impacts key constituencies like women and girls.

For example, without proper toilet facilities, women and girls constantly risk rape and sexual assault while defecating in the open, and pubescent girls drop out of school because of the lack of privacy, he said.

Accordingly, for its commemoration of World Toilet Day this year, Singapore is planning an event focusing on the unique and particular challenges of open defecation for women and girls.

“There are taboos within taboos, so we want to focus on the unique vulnerabilities of women without access to basic sanitation and toilets,” he added.

Neo said the U.N.’s Millennium Development Goal (MDG) target of providing basic sanitation is lagging behind other MDGs and is unlikely to be achieved by 2015.

Therefore, it is critical that sanitation remains prominent in the post-2015 development agenda both as a stand-alone goal and mainstreamed into other goals under the agenda.

The U.N.’s campaign against open defecation will run through the end of 2015.

Mother, an independent advertising agency in the United Kingdom, has given time and expertise on a pro bono basis to develop campaign ideas and materials, according to the United Nations.

Where there is open defecation, pathogens spread quickly, causing diarrhoea, cholera, bilharzia (caused by freshwater worms) and other diseases, according to WaterAid.

More than 1,400 children die each day of diarrhoeal diseases linked to a lack of safe water, basic sanitation and good hygiene.

Williams told IPS the sanitation movement supports millions each year to build a toilet for their household, assisted by programmes such as the WSSCC’s Global Sanitation Fund and development partners such as the World Bank and the U.N. children’s agency UNICEF.

“Together we are helping rural communities to stop open defecation and wash their hands of disease spread by poor sanitation once and for all.”

Between 1990 and 2012, open defecation decreased from 24 percent to 14 percent globally. South Asia saw the largest decline from 65 percent to 38 percent, according to WSSCC.

But there are stark disparities across regions, between urban and rural areas, and between the rich and the poor and marginalised.

The vast majority of those without sanitation are poorer people living in rural areas. Yet, progress on sanitation has often increased inequality by primarily benefitting wealthier people, according to WSSCC.

WSSCC’s Global Sanitation Fund (GSF) has helped support 2.7 million people using toilets, enabled 3.7 million people in more than 14,400 communities to live in cleaner environments free of open defecation and helped 4.2 million people wash their hands with soap.

The GSF has committed 86 million dollars in 11 country programmes worldwide, according to WSSCC.

(END)

An open drainage ditch in Ankorondrano-Andranomahery. Madagascar receives just 0.5 dollars per person per year for WASH programmes . Credit: Lova Rabary-Rakontondravony/IPS

By Michelle Tullo
WASHINGTON, Apr 12 2014 (IPS)

World leaders on Friday discussed plans to expand sustainable access for water, sanitation and hygiene, focusing in particular on how to reach those in remote rural areas and slums where development projects have been slow to penetrate.

The meeting, which took place amidst the semi-annual gatherings here of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) could be the world’s largest ever to take place on the issue."Ministers are much happier to talk and support a hydro project, like a huge dam, and are less happy to open up a public latrine." -- Darren Saywell

Water, sanitation and hygiene, collectively known as WASH, constitute a key development metric, yet sanitation in particular has seen some of the poorest improvements in recent years.

Participants at Friday’s summit included U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, World Bank President Jim Yong Kim, UNICEF Executive Director Anthony Lake as well as dozens of government ministers and civil society leaders.

“Today 2.5 billion people do not have access to clean water, sanitation and hygiene,” the World Bank’s Kim said Friday. “This results in 400 million missed school days, and girls and women are more likely to drop out because they lack toilets in schools or are at risk of assault.”

Kim said that this worldwide lack of access results in some 260 billion dollars in annual economic losses – costs that are significant on a country-to-country basis.

In Niger, Kim said, these losses account for around 2.5 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) every year. In India the figure is even higher – around 6.4 percent of GDP.

Friday’s summit was convened by UNICEF.

“UNICEF’s mandate is to protect the rights of children and make sure they achieve their full potential. WASH is critical to what we hope for children to achieve, as well as to their health,” Sanjay Wijesekera, associate director of programmes for UNICEF, told IPS.

“Every day, 1400 children die from diarrhoea due to poor WASH. In addition, 165 million children suffer from stunted growth, and WASH is a contributory factor because clean water is needed to absorb nutrients properly.”

Over 40 countries came to the meeting to share their commitments to improving WASH.

“Many countries have already shown that progress can be made,” Wijesekera said. “Ethiopia, for example, halved those without access to water from 92 percent in 1990 to 36 percent in 2012, and equitably across the country.”

A water kiosk in Blantyre, Malawi. Credit: Charles Mpaka/IPS

Good investment

Indeed, the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) for water halved the proportion of people without access to improved sources of water five years ahead of schedule. Yet the goal to improve access to quality sanitation facilities was one of the worst performing MDGs.

In order to get sanitation on track, a global partnership was created called Sanitation and Water for All (SWA), made up of over 90 developing country governments, donors, civil society organisations and other development partners.

“Sanitation as a subject is a complicated process … You have different providers and actors involved at the delivery of the service,” Darren Saywell, the SWA vice-chair, told IPS.

“NGOs are good with convening communities and community action plans. The private sector is needed to respond and provide supply of goods when demand is created. Government needs to help regulate and move the different leaders in the creation of markets.”

In addition, sanitation and hygiene are not topics that can gain easy political traction.

“It is not seen as something to garner much political support,” Saywell says. “Ministers are much happier to talk and support a hydro project, like a huge dam, and are less happy to open up a public latrine.”

Saywell says that an important part of SWA’s work is to demonstrate that investing in WASH is a good economic return.

“Every dollar invested in sanitation brings a return of roughly five dollars,” he says. “That’s sexy!”

Sustainable investments

Friday’s summit covered three main issues: discussing the WASH agenda for post-2015 (when the current MDGs expire), tackling inequality in WASH, and determining how these actions will be sustainable.

“We would like the sector to the set the course for achieving universal access by 2030,” Henry Northover, the global head of policy at WaterAid, a key NGO participant, told IPS.

Although the meeting did not set the post-2015 global development goals for WASH, it was meant to call public attention to the importance of these related goals and ways of achieving them.

“Donors and developing country governments need to stop seeing sanitation as an outcome of development, but rather as an indispensable driver of poverty reduction,” Northover said.

WaterAid recently published a report on inequality in WASH access, Bridging the Divide. The study looks at the imbalances in aid targeting and notes that, for instance, Jordan receives 850 dollars per person per year for WASH while Madagascar, which has considerably worse conditions, receives just 0.5 dollars per person per year.

The report says this imbalance in aid targeting is due to “geographical or strategic interests, historical links with former colonies, and domestic policy reasons”. Northover added to this list, noting that “donors are reluctant to invest in fragile states.”

“In India, despite spectacular levels of growth over the past 10 years, we have seen barely any progress in the poorest areas in terms of gaining access to sanitation,” he continued. “Regarding inequality, we are talking both in terms of wealth and gender: the task falls to women and girls to fetch water, they cannot publicly defecate, and have security risks.”

Others see funding allocation as only an initial step.

“Shift the money to the poorer countries, and then, so what?” John Sauer, of the non-profit Water for People, asked IPS. “The challenge is then the capacity to spend that money and absorb it into district governments, the ones with the legal purview to make sure the water and sanitation issues get addressed.”

Friday’s meeting also shared plans on how to use existing resources better, once investments are made.

“If there is one water pump, it will break down pretty quickly,” WaterAid’s Northover said. “This often requires some level of institutional capability for financial management.”

Countries also described their commitments to make sanitation sustainable. The Dutch government, for instance, introduced a clause in some of its WASH agreements that any related foreign assistance must function for at least a decade. East Asian countries like Vietnam and Mongolia are creating investment packages that also help to rehabilitate and maintain existing WASH systems.

“This is probably one of the biggest meetings on WASH possibly ever, and what we mustn’t forget is that the 40 or 50 countries coming are making a commitment to do very tangible things that are measurable, UNICEF’s Wijesekera told IPS. “That bodes well for achieving longer-term goals of achieving universal access and equality.”

Residents of Clara Town, a low-income neighbourhood of Monrovia, Liberia, face sanitation challenges with the onset of the rainy season. Credit: Travis Lupick/IPS

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Feb 19 2014 (IPS)

When the U.N.’s Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) reach their deadline in 2015, there will still be a critical setback: millions of people in the developing world without full access to safe drinking water, proper sanitation and electricity in their homes.

Conscious of this shortcoming, the 193-member General Assembly hosted a two-day high-level meeting, which concluded Wednesday, to address three thematic issues: water, sanitation and sustainable energy, specifically in the context of the U.N.’s post-2015 development agenda.

But water experts are sceptical whether the targets will be fully met by 2015 unless there is a dramatic acceleration of the current pace, particularly in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.

A 2012 U.N. report claimed the goal to halve the proportion of people living without access to safe drinking water has been reached – with more than two billion people being the beneficiaries.

Still, there are 327 million sub-Saharan Africans without this crucial service today than in 1990, Girish Menon, director of international programmes at the London-based WaterAid, told IPS.

At current rates, he predicted, it will take until at least 2030 for sub-Saharan Africa to meet the MDG water target.

Addressing delegates Tuesday, General Assembly President John Ashe described the magnitude of the problem as great: 783 million people live without clean water, 2.5 billion have no adequate sanitation and 1.4 billion people are without access to electricity, he said.

“Compounding this problem is the fact that in many countries across the globe there is severe water stress and water scarcity,” he said.

Ashe said about 80 percent of the world’s population lives in areas with high water security threats.

A background paper prepared by his office says “achieving universal access to safe drinking water, basic sanitation and modern energy services is one of the greatest multifaceted development challenges confronting the world today.”

Asked if the shortcomings will be carried over to the new proposed Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in the post-2015 agenda to be launched next year, Menon said, “If the SDGs are to succeed in eradicating poverty on a sustainable basis, they need to learn from the failures of the MDGs and reverse the neglect of sanitation and hygiene.”

A man hauls water at the Chico Mendes landless peasant camp in Pernambuco, Brazil. Credit: Alejandro Arigón/IPS

Clarissa Brocklehurst, water and sanitation specialist and former chief of water, sanitation and hygiene at the U.N. children’s agency UNICEF, told IPS, “While the MDGs were wonderful in terms of galvanising action on water and sanitation, there are several challenges closer to the MDG deadline.”

The MDG target for water has been met, but without widespread water quality monitoring, and the estimates for the number of people using safe water is based on a proxy measure (the type of technology households use), she noted.

“Not enough progress has been made on sanitation and we are off-track to achieve the MDG target,” said Brocklehurst.

She said hygiene was not part of the MDGs and as a result it has not received the attention it needs.

“And perhaps most worryingly, what progress has been made in both water and sanitation is highly inequitable,” she added.

She pointed out that urban dwellers are far more likely to have water and sanitation than rural dwellers, and the rich are more likely to have received services than the poor.

There is also evidence suggesting that within some countries, marginalised ethnic groups are more likely to rely on unimproved water sources and practise open defecation, she added.

Menon of WaterAid told IPS “at current rates of progress we’ll miss the global sanitation target by eight percent – that is half a billion people.”

Today, only 30 percent of Sub-Saharan Africans have adequate sanitation, a number that has only grown by four percent since 1990. Slow progress on sanitation is holding back progress on many other targets, he added.

Menon said water, sanitation and hygiene are critical to eradicating poverty, improving health, nutrition, education and gender equality, and enabling economic growth.

“Given the scale of the challenge we are calling for a dedicated global goal focused on securing sustainable water and sanitation for all,” he said.

Brocklehurst told IPS that reported progress on many of the other MDGs shows similar outcomes, and in general, new targets after 2015 will have to be designed to encourage governments to make the poor, vulnerable and marginalised a high priority.

Water, sanitation and hygiene underpin progress in health, nutrition, gender equity and education and so should be a key part of future targets; and the targets set for them must build momentum toward universal access as an urgent priority, she added.

Asked if the current global financial crisis is having an impact on the achievement of MDGs, specifically water and sanitation, Menon said global aid for water and sanitation fell by around one billion dollars between 2009 and 2011, partly because of the financial crisis.

While water and sanitation aid rebounded in 2012, they are still at half the level required to fill the MDG funding gap.

Developing countries’ figures on water and sanitation spending are unclear, but it’s apparent that no Sub-Saharan African government has met even their own target of 0.5 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) on sanitation, Menon pointed out.

Asked if the United Nations was doing enough, Menon said U.N. Deputy-Secretary General Jan Eliasson has been taking the lead in making water, sanitation and hygiene political priorities, as seen in his “Call to Action on Sanitation” and keynote speeches at the U.N. and other international forums.

Meanwhile, he said, the World Health Organisation (WHO) and UNICEF have led international consultations to develop new targets for achieving universal access to water, sanitation and hygiene post-2015 .

“WaterAid has actively supported these efforts and believes that universal access by 2030 is ambitious but achievable,” Menon concluded.

An open drainage ditch in Madagascar. Credit: Lova Rabary-Rakontondravony/IPS

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Nov 16 2013 (IPS)

The United Nations has a longstanding tradition of commemorating political milestones – like the abolition of the slave trade – or sustaining day-long vigils on controversial issues such as a ban on nuclear tests.

The annual events have covered a wide range of political, social and economic issues on a 24-hour timeline, including World Cancer Day, World Press Freedom Day, World Refugee Day, World AIDS Day, World Population Day and World Water Day."An environment that lacks sanitation and clean water is an environment where achieving other development goals is an impossible dream." -- Dr. Chris Williams

But for some unaccountable reason, the United Nations continued to sidestep a growing problem facing over 2.5 billion people: lack of adequate sanitation.

So last July, the 193-member U.N. General Assemby (UNGA) adopted a resolution, initiated by Singapore, to declare Nov. 19 “World Toilet Day,” the first-ever in the 68-year history of the United Nations.

“The name is catchy and humourous,” says the statement by Singapore, “But it serves to capture the public’s attention, and focus on the challenges of sanitation and toilets.”

The resolution, which was co-sponsored by 121 member states, calls for greater attention to the global sanitation crisis through the commemoration of World Toilet Day next week.

Asked why sanitation has remained a neglected goal in the U.N.’s development agenda, Mark Neo, deputy permanent represent of Singapore to the United Nations, told IPS sanitation was not originally included in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and was agreed upon in the 2002 Rio+10 conference in Johannesburg, for inclusion.

“More importantly, sanitation is not just about toilets and infrastructure, it is about social and behavioural changes which cannot be achieved overnight and will take time,” he said.

Despite these obstacles, much progress has been made. Since 1990, 1.8 billion people have gained access to improved sanitation, and the number of people who practice open defecation has been reduced by 272 million, he pointed out.

“However, the sad reality is that one billion people still practice open defecation and 2.5 billion do not have adequate sanitation facilities,” Neo said.

Against this backdrop, Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson’s recent “Call to Action on Sanitation” and the consensus adoption of the resolution on World Toilet Day” are timely and useful in highlighting the need to make progress on the continuing challenge of sanitation,” he added.

Dr. Chris Williams, executive director of the Geneva-based Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council (WSSCC), told IPS sanitation and hygiene are motors which drive health, social and economic development around the world.

“An environment that lacks sanitation and clean water is an environment where achieving other development goals is an impossible dream. The time to act is now,” he added.

In its campaign to help resolve the world’s sanitation crisis, the government of Singapore is partnering with the World Toilet Organisation (WTO), a Singapore-based NGO, founded in 2001, with 534 members, who are mostly local toilet associations.

WTO founder Jack Sim (known affectionately as “Mr Toilet”) will be at the United Nations to take part in the commemoration.

“When we were children, our parents told not to talk about (poo),” Sim told IPS. “This is a really serious problem. What you don’t talk about, you cannot improve.”

Fleur Anderson, head of campaigns at the London-based WaterAid, told IPS next week’s commemoration is not just the creation of yet another “U.N. Day”, but a strong sign that governments recognise that toilets-for-all is essential for saving children’s lives.

“We’ll certainly be working with others to use World Toilet Day to draw the attention of governments to the enormous scale of the problem,” Anderson said.

WaterAid will also be launching a report next week, jointly with the WSSCC and Unilever, highlighting the huge impact sanitation has on women’s lives and calling for a collaborative approach between governments, civil society and business to get the MDG sanitation target – halving the number of people without adequate sanitation – back on track.

Emma Pfister, manager of social media and partnerships at Water for People, told IPS it is not enough to keep throwing money at the problem and building more toilets.

“We’ve seen that this approach doesn’t work, resulting in wasted investment and greater challenges for the world’s poorest,” she said. “Our goal at Water for People is to ensure every family, school and clinic has sustainable access to an adequate toilet – and that means a toilet that continues to work.”

Officially observing World Toilet Day is a great step toward making sanitation a priority on the global agenda, Pfister noted.

“And while it helps to raise awareness and funds, we must also demand more effective solutions that result in lasting impact,” she said. “We must change the way aid is spent and hold U.N. agencies, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), and governments accountable for their work intervening in people’s lives.”

Projecting into the future, Neo told IPS there is insufficient time left to achieve the MDG target on sanitation by 2015. At the current rate of progress, he pointed out, there will still be 936 million people practicising open defecation in 2015.

“Therefore it is important that sanitation features prominently in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the post-2015 development agenda that follows MDGs.”

Economically, Neo said, poor sanitation costs countries 0.5 to 7.0 percent of their gross domestic product (GDP), while the gains globally from investing in sanitation amount to about 260 billion dollars annually.

WaterAid Chief Executive Barbara Frost told IPS that at the turn of the millennium, world leaders promised to halve the proportion of people living without access to a basic toilet by 2015. At current rates of progress, around half a billion people will have to wait another decade before they get this basic service they were promised.

“We can and should be doing better [because] it is basic services we are talking about that can transform lives,” she said.

More than 768 million people are without safe drinking water. Credit: Amantha Perera/IPS

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Oct 10 2013 (IPS)

Just 17 years from now, nearly half the global population could be facing water scarcity, with demand outstripping supply by 40 percent.

“We must address unsustainable use,” U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon declared earlier this week at the Budapest water summit in Hungary. “This is the International Year of Water Cooperation. And we need joint efforts to guarantee a fair share for people and the planets essential ecosystems.”

As 2013 draws to a close, the world body itself is getting mixed reviews on the progress made in a more than decade-long effort to resolve the world’s water and sanitation problems.

The numbers remain staggering: more than 768 million people are without safe drinking water and over 2.5 billion without adequate sanitation worldwide.

But neither of the demands is expected to be met fully when the U.N.’s Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) – primarily to reduce and eradicate extreme poverty and hunger – reach their 2015 deadline.

Barbara Frost, chief executive of WaterAid, told IPS the MDG target for drinking water – reducing by half the number of people lacking one of the world’s finite resources – has been met globally.

“And the U.N. and its agencies should be rightly praised for their major contribution to this achievement,” she said.

Still, many African nations, and the African region as a whole, are off-track in meeting this commitment to their people, she added.

Last month, a petition with more than one million signatures was delivered to world leaders who were in New York for the General Assembly, urging them to amplify the global need for access to safe sanitation and drinking water – “basic human rights that millions of people are dying to obtain every day.”

The petition was created by a coalition of non-governmental organisations (NGOs), including WaterAid, and led by End Water Poverty.

The signatures came mostly from South Asia (670,000) and Africa (180,000) – two regions that have some of the lowest levels of access to sanitation and water.

“Every signature collected offered an opportunity to inform and educate people to their rights as well as highlight the commitments that have been made by governments to improve access,” Frost said.

According to the U.N. chief, water holds the key to sustainable development.

“We need it for health, food security and economic progress. Yet, each year brings new pressures,” Ban said Tuesday.

Ban said water is wasted and poorly used by all sectors in all countries. That means all sectors in all countries must cooperate for sustainable solutions.

“We must use what we have more equitably and wisely. We cannot expect governments to do this alone,” he added.

Danielle Nierenberg, co-founder of Food Tank, told IPS while the world has been able to meet the MDG of halving the proportion of people without access to safe drinking water, there are still some the 768 million people who don’t have clean water.

“That’s roughly twice the population of the United States,” she pointed out.

Nierenberg said much more needs to be done to ensure that clean water gets to the people who need it the most – in places like Haiti, Bangladesh, Niger, and other countries, where not only clean water is scarce, but also adequate nutrition is non-existent.

Research organisations, governments, and the funding and donor communities need to put more investment in making sure agriculture – which makes up 70 percent of water use – conserves water, she said.

“Until the world invests in innovations – agroforestry, cover cropping, more efficient irrigation, and other practices – we won’t be able to make sure everyone has access to clean water,” she said.

The solutions are out there, they just need more attention, more research, and ultimately more funding and investment, she stressed.

In July 2010, the General Assembly adopted a resolution declaring water and sanitation a basic human right.

Asked what progress has been made since then, Frost of WaterAid told IPS the latest figures show that between 2010 and 2011 nearly 100 million people gained access to water while over 70 million gained access to sanitation.

“While much of this progress has been taken up through similar increases in population, we should acknowledge that these services are being provided in large numbers to those who don’t have,” she said.

Recognition by the General Assembly has also been important for those who do not have formal rights to the homes and land that they live on – like the over 800 million living in slum areas, Frost noted.

The right to water and sanitation has given these communities a counterweight with which they can argue more forcefully that they should still have their right to water and sanitation realised through the provision of these services, she added.

Frost said in order to ensure that everyone, everywhere has access to safe water and sanitation, the U.N.’s post-2015 development agenda must include a specific goal and the enabling targets for universal access to these basic but essential services by 2030.

Without everyone, everywhere having the essential access to water and sanitation, the dream of eradicating poverty in our lifetimes, will remain just that, a dream, she said.

Irrigation canal, Mchinji. Credit: FISD/IPS

By Thalif Deen
ROME, Jun 19 2013 (IPS)

Since food and water are so closely interlinked, there is a lingering fear based on the assumption, if there is no water, there will be no food.

The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) underlines the strong links between the two when it declares that agriculture accounts for over 70 percent of global water use.

Meanwhile, the share of water available for agriculture is expected to decline to 40 percent by 2050, warns an FAO report released here for the agency’s 38thsession, currently underway. “Water is becoming scarce not because the volume of water is reduced but because demand from society is increasing.” - Prof. Jan Lundqvist, Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI)

The figures are based on statistics released by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

The availability of fresh water resources shows a similar picture to that of land: sufficient resources at the global level are unevenly distributed, and an increasing number of countries, or parts of countries, are reaching critical levels of water scarcity, according to FAO.

The FAO also says many of the water-scarce countries in the Near East and North Africa, and in South Asia, further lack land resources.

Due to their vulnerability, coastal areas, the Mediterranean basin, the North East and North African countries and dry Central Asia appear as locations where investment in water management techniques should be considered a priority when promoting agricultural productivity growth.

Asked if the link between agricultural productivity and water scarcity is real, Prof. Jan Lundqvist, senior scientific advisor at Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI), told IPS, “Yes and No”.

If there is no water (e.g. in deserts), food cannot be produced, he pointed out. But water is a renewable resource and the hydrological cycle, which is driven by the sun, will continue also in the future.

The amount of renewable freshwater in terms of precipitation falling over the continents is about 110,000 km3 per year, he said. But with an increasing population, the amount of water per capita is inevitably reduced.

It is increasingly difficult, costly and dangerous, according to Lundqvist, to divert more water from rivers and lakes and to pump water from groundwater reserves.

“At the same time, with economic development, the per-capita demand increases. It is, indeed, a tricky equation,” he noted.

Since everything humans eat requires water to be produced, the paradox of the “water we eat” was best illustrated by an exhibition at a SIWI conference last year, which pointed out that the production of an average hamburger – two slices of bread, beef, tomato, lettuce, onions and cheese – consumes about 2,389 litres of water, compared to 140 litres for a cup of coffee and 135 for a single egg.

An average meal of rice, beef and vegetables requires about 4,230 litres of water while a chunky, succulent beef steak, a staple among the rich in the world’s industrial countries, consumes one of the largest quantum of water: about 7,000 litres.

Vincent Casey, technical support manager at the London-based WaterAid, told IPS that irrigated agriculture accounts for the vast majority of water withdrawals in many countries.

A great deal can be done to prevent water scarcity through changes to thirsty agricultural practices.

Crop types, irrigation methods and water tariffs can be changed to reduce demand. These actions require political commitment, which can be difficult to get, he noted.

Two things are required for water security: well-managed water resources and well-managed water supply services (pumps, pipes taps, storage tanks).

Water scarcity is already a daily reality for over 760 million people right now – not because irrigation farmers are drinking all of their water, Casey said, but because of a lack of the water supply services required to make use of available water.

“If we didn’t have reservoirs, pipes and taps in the UK, we would be water scarce too”.

Management of the water supply crisis will involve demand management in areas where there is pressure on the resource, he added, and supply management where people lack any kind of access to water — not because it isn’t there but because it requires investment to develop it.

If there is a scarcity of water, Lundqvist told IPS, food production will be a victim for two main reasons.

Firstly, other sectors will require a large share of water supply. With urbanization both industry and households will be able to articulate their demands and they are in a better position to pay for additional water.

“Water is becoming scarce not because the volume of water is reduced but because demand from society is increasing,” he said.

A second reason is that precipitation pattern will be more stochastic as a result of global warming. Risk will increase for farmers, since uncertainty will increase.

This is particularly problematic, he pointed out, for rain-fed agriculture. But with an increasing frequency and amplitude of droughts and floods, and with the increasing demands from other sectors, the timing of supplies for irrigation during the agricultural seasons will be more tricky.

Higher temperature will speed up the return flow of water back to atmosphere with complications for the farmers.

Under these circumstances –and considering the fact that enough food is produced to feed the entire world population properly– it will be crucial, he said, to make sure that the food produced is beneficially used to the degree feasible and reaches the consumers, including the poor.

Between one-third and half of the food produced is lost, wasted or converted. This means a tremendous waste of resources.

“We must walk on two legs into the future, ensure that enough is produced and make sure that the produce is accessed and used in a most worthwhile manner,” he declared.

The real predicament is regional. The population continues to increase in many areas where water availability is already quite limited.

Even more challenging: the rainfall pattern is becoming more unreliable, while temperature is increasing, he noted.

There will thus be seasons and periods when a growing number of people will experience prolonged droughts (they may last over several years) while in other places, floods will have devastating consequences, he warned.

Residents of Clara Town, a low-income neighbourhood of Monrovia, Liberia, face sanitation challenges with the onset of the rainy season. Credit: Travis Lupick/IPS

By Ousseini Issa
NIAMEY , Apr 10 2013 (IPS)

About 20 communities in Tillabéri, west Niger, have been declared open defecation-free zones as across the country, very few people have access to proper sanitation.

The communities were part of a Community Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) project, launched in September 2010 in 32 villages in the region by the local office of the NGO Plan International.

Souley Hachimou, a sanitation technician in Niamey, the Niger capital, told IPS: “Open air defecation is a widespread hazard in Niger, especially in rural areas where people do not see the need for latrines, as they have the bush nearby to relieve themselves.”

But, according to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), more than 90 percent of the population in rural areas still practice open defecation.

Part of the reason could be Niger’s rapid population growth since 1990.

According to a study on sanitation in the five African countries of Niger, Sierra Leone, Ghana, Uganda and Rwanda, published on Feb. 20 by the international NGO WaterAid, “between 1990 and 2013, Niger’s population increased by 7.7 million people, but only one million people had access to sanitation during the same period.”

Salmou Yacouba, a 62-year-old resident of Saga-Gorou, a village close to Niamey, told IPS that this was because many in the rural areas were not used to toilets. “The construction of latrines, even traditional ones, requires money to buy cement and steel reinforcements for the slab, never mind the labour. We are not used to toilets – they are for towns where there are no open spaces for people to relieve themselves,” she said.

Boulkassoum Hamadou, an inhabitant of Tillabéri, told IPS that it was difficult to maintain the deep pits needed for latrines in rural areas.

“They have to be emptied once they are full, otherwise the stench around the village is intolerable. Everyone needs to help maintain latrines, which is difficult enough in a household, never mind a village.

“This is why people continue to defecate outside.”

But Marietou Boubacar, a 31-year-old small-scale farmer in Saga-Gorou, conceded that open defecation was unhealthy. “When you learn that contagious diseases, especially cholera, are caused by a lack of sanitation and hygiene, you start to adopt good practices, and you stop defecating in the open because health is precious,” she told IPS.

The WaterAid report pointed out that “out of 15.5 million Nigeriens, 14.1 million do not currently have access to proper toilets; only six percent use latrines, while 79 percent resort to open air defecation.” The report, titled, “Keeping promises: Why African Leaders Need Now to Deliver on Past Water and Sanitation Commitments” attributes this to the government’s failure to honour previous financial commitments in the sanitation sector.

In all five countries covered by the study, the current levels of access to sanitation compared to the targets set out in the U.N. Millennium Development Goals, eight development goals adopted by U.N. member states in 2000, leave much to be desired. The current overall level of access to sanitation in Niger is nine percent, though in rural areas it is only four percent.

Niger has also failed to meet the commitments of the African Union’s “eThekwini Declaration” signed in South Africa in 2008, where governments agreed to commit at least 0.5 percent of their GDP to sanitation.

According to the WaterAid report, 0.89 percent of GDP (39.4 million dollars) has been spent on water and sanitation combined between 2007 and 2010.

“There is no clear separation of budget items dedicated to water and sanitation to help make more accurate assessments of the efforts made by each government department, but investments are probably less in water and hygiene,” Hachimou said.

Soumaïla Hima, a health worker in Niamey, said that “a lack of access to sanitation and hygiene is the cause of the most recurrent diseases in our country, such as parasitic and diarrhoeal illnesses.”

“The cholera epidemic which spread across the whole country last year, causing several thousand infections, including 300 deaths, is mainly the result of this,” he told IPS.

The WaterAid report cites a World Bank calculation that “the lack of access to sanitation costs Niger the equivalent of 2.4 percent of its GDP, about 143.6 dollars per year (to treat diseases), which is two and a half times the annual amount spent on access to water and sanitation.”

In addition to the cost incurred for medical visits, hospitalisation and the purchase of medicines, Nigeriens also waste a huge amount of time looking for a place to relieve themselves — about 2.2 billion hours per year, Hamani Oumarou, the head of WaterAid in Niamey, told IPS.

Development partners are supporting the Niger government achieve its target to increase the number of people with access to sanitation from six percent in 2009 to 25 percent per year by 2015, according to the Nigerien Minister of Water and Environment.

Togota Sogoba, the head of water and sanitation at UNICEF in Niamey, told IPS that the organisation was also undertaking “projects along the lines of CLTS (Community Led Total Sanitation) in 225 villages, among which 140 have completely stopped open air defecation.”