Global water and sanitation crisis is killing and spreading disease among millions
Pastor Dale Morgan
*Global water and sanitation crisis is killing and spreading disease
among millions, a U.N. report says. *
10 Nov 2006 13:00:00 GMT
Source: Reuters
REUTERS/Thomas Mukoya
CAPE TOWN, Nov 10 (Reuters) - The world's richest states must spearhead
efforts to tackle a water and sanitation crisis that is killing and
spreading disease among millions and holding back economies, especially
in Africa, a U.N. report said on Thursday.
The United Nations Development Programme's (UNDP) 2006 Human Development
Report recommended that all governments guarantee every person at least
20 litres of clean water a day and spend at least one percent of GDP on
water and sanitation.
The report, which is regarded as a snapshot on the world's progress on
key development issues, also urged the most industrialised countries to
raise international aid to poorer nations by $3.4 billion to $4 billion
annually.
Without concerted action by the G8, a grouping that includes the United
States and Britain, millions in the developing world will continue to be
plagued by avoidable poverty, poor health and diminished economic
opportunities, the report warned.
"National governments need to draw up credible plans and strategies for
tackling the crisis in water and sanitation," said Kevin Watkins, lead
author of the report, which was released in Cape Town.
"But we also need a global action plan -- with active buy-in from the G8
countries -- to focus fragmented international efforts to mobilise
resources and galvanise political action by putting water and sanitation
front and centre on the development agenda," he said.
The call to action came amid worrying signs large tracts of the
developing world will not meet eight U.N. Millennium development goals
agreed by world leaders -- ranging from reducing extreme poverty to
halting the spread of AIDS by 2015.
If current trends hold, sub-Saharan Africa would only reach the U.N.
Millennium clean water target in 2040. The Arab nations are 27 years off
the mark.
LIVES OF MILLIONS AT STAKE
At stake are the lives of millions of children as well as the health and
economic well-being of more than two billion others living in developing
nations, where drinking contaminated water from drains or streams is
often the norm.
About 1.8 million children around the world die each year from diarrhoea
that could be prevented by access to clean water or a toilet and almost
half of those in the developing world are sick at any given time due to
poor water and sanitation.
Besides health benefits, supporters predict a global clean water
campaign would spur economic growth in regions such as sub-Saharan
Africa, which loses five percent of its GDP each year due to poor water
and sanitation, according to the report.
Each dollar invested in water and sanitation improvements would return
$8 through increased productivity, reduced healthcare costs and other
economic windfalls, especially for the poor who often pay more for clean
water, the report stated.
Efforts to better manage water resources could also reduce the
likelihood of wars and armed conflicts erupting over ownership and
access to a basic necessity that is increasingly viewed by governments
as a prized economic asset.
While praising the UNDP for addressing the crisis, some international
development workers worried that the report would fall on deaf ears or
be swallowed into a morass of bureaucracy -- the U.N. has some two dozen
agencies working on water issues.
People living without water and sanitation "need one international water
monitoring body taking urgent action, and prepared to name and shame
those failing to deliver, be they donor or recipient governments," said
Paul Hetherington of WaterAid, a British-based non-governmental
organisation.
A global water and sanitation campaign could be patterned on the Global
Fun to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, which has won praise from
some quarters for battling the pandemic with a minimal amount of
bureaucracy, the UNDP report said.