Governments Failing to Tackle World Water Crisis

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Summary: Governments are today criticised for not doing enough to tackle the world’s water and sanitation crisis - in which a child dies every 14 seconds from dehydration caused by diarrhoea, and which sees half the hospital beds in the world filled with people suffering water related diseases.

Governments are today criticised for not doing enough to tackle the world’s water and sanitation crisis - in which a child dies every 14 seconds from dehydration caused by diarrhoea, and which sees half the hospital beds in the world filled with people suffering water related diseases.

In a report published on World Water Day (March 22), development agency Tearfund highlights the fact that one in five people on the planet now lacks access to clean water and 40 per cent do not have basic sanitation. Tearfund’s report calls for an urgent doubling of aid for water and sanitation to $30 billion a year - which is less than a third of what the world spends each year on bottled water.

The report, "Pipe dreams", reveals that aid for water and sanitation from the European Union and member governments has been falling over the past five years, despite the fact that 6,000 children die every day due to poor water and sanitation.

he report reveals that:

  • The EU body set up to help achieve the Millennium Development Goal to halve the number of people without access to clean water and basic sanitation has made feeble progress since its much-heralded launch at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg in 2002
  • More international aid money for water and sanitation is going to middle-income countries rather than low-income countries where the need is much greater
  • The UK government has failed to prioritise aid for water and sanitation in the same way it has for health and education, even though 443 million school days are lost each year due to diarrhoeal diseases

“Our research shows that governments are failing to adequately address the global water and sanitation crisis. Some responses are bordering on pitiful,” says Joanne Green, Tearfund’s Water Policy Advisor.

The report warns that the world’s water and sanitation crisis will only grow as millions more people crowd into city slums, putting even greater pressure on scant resources. Irrigation for agriculture will continue to drain aquifers and river basins as farmers seek to meet rising demand. Climate change, too, is a major threat to water supplies.

Joanne Green says: “Alarmingly, aid to water and sanitation for Sub-Saharan Africa has plummeted, yet four out of 10 people in that region do not have access to clean water. From 1990 to 1994, an average of 56 per cent of European donors’ aid to water and sanitation went to Sub-Saharan Africa. This dwindled to 29 per cent in the five years to 2003.”

The report accuses governments of underestimating the scale and impact of the water and sanitation crisis. Symptoms of this malaise include:

  • An over-emphasis on treating water-related diseases while neglecting the causes of those diseases - poor water and sanitation
  • An over-emphasis on supporting a few big water projects rather than a range of smaller, cheaper water projects that would be more likely to reach poor people
  • Misplaced faith in the role the private sector would play in delivering water and sanitation to poor communities

The EU’s contribution to tackling the global water crisis, the EU Water Initiative (EUWI), was signed by Heads of State at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in 2002. But it became bogged down in bureaucracy and has failed to make a significant impact. Separate efforts to increase funding for water and sanitation through the EU Water Facility (EUWF) have succeeded only in distracting attention away from the core problems of ineffective and inadequate EU aid. Reasons for this failure include a lack of commitment by EU member states and the EUWI pursuing private finance (which has not been forthcoming) instead of increased donor aid.

Pipe dreams also highlights the fact that most international aid money for tackling the global water crisis is going to wealthier countries.

Says Joanne Green: “The sad truth is that much aid from wealthy countries around the world is given on the basis of national self interest rather than the needs of the poor. Haiti, one of the world’s poorest countries, receives nearly 10 times less aid for water than Egypt, a middle-income country. In fact, none of 15 countries recently identified by Tearfund as most in need of aid to remedy chronic water and sanitation problems feature among the 10 countries currently receiving most help.”

Joanne Green concludes: “Africa will currently miss by decades the Millennium Development Goal of halving the number of people without access to water and sanitation by 2015. Aid needs to be urgently re-doubled, but also re-focused on the poorest countries to get us back on track.”

Read about children's participation at the World Water Forum which concludes today in Mexico City

 

pdf: http://www.crin.org/docs/tearfund_pipe.pdf

Organisation: 
Tearfund
Attachment Link: 
http://www.crin.org/docs/tearfund_pipe.pdf

Countries

    Please note that these reports are hosted by CRIN as a resource for Child Rights campaigners, researchers and other interested parties. Unless otherwise stated, they are not the work of CRIN and their inclusion in our database does not necessarily signify endorsement or agreement with their content by CRIN.