Africa: Water For A Better Life
It is not the lack of water that causes poverty in Africa but the distribution of it..
In specific, it is the lack of access to clean water that impedes on the foundation of development to facilitate the basic day-to-day needs. Whilst the importance of water is pertinent to many areas of study, this blog aims to explore the concerns of access to safe water and adequate sanitation facilities.
The importance of safe water and adequate sanitation levels for human development is an obvious but often forgotten quality for people living in relatively developed regions, of which, I too am guilty of. It is essential for growth and no doubt a vital resource for any form of sustainable development, critical to the achievement of other development objectives such as adequate nutrition, gender equality, education and the eradication of poverty. However, this basic human right (recognised in 2010 by the UN) is far from achieved in many places around the world where one million lives are lost each year due to water bourne diseases (Water Project 2016). The drop in investment for infrastructure following the collapse of colonialism combined with projects of unproductive international interventions failed to improve conditions.
These problems were brought to the forefront of global discussion through the 2015 United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals. Providing a framework to work together and improve global conditions – target 7c challenged the international community by focusing on halving the proportion of the population without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation by 2015.
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| 2015 MDGs |
2015 marked the end of the Millennium Development Goal period, where the
global target for drinking-water was met five years ahead of schedule with 96%
of the global urban population and 84%of the rural population using improved drinking water resources (WHO 2015).
However, the target for sanitation was missed as 2.4 billion people lacked access to improved sanitation
facilities. 761 million people used public or shared sanitation facilities
and almost 700 million used facilities that did not even meet the minimum standards
of hygiene (WHO, 2015). Furthermore, the WHO's definition of an improved
drinking-water source being a source that ‘by nature of its construction
adequately protects the source from outside contamination, in particular faecal
matter’ is vague and subjective, which makes us question the validity
of the data. Inadequate sanitation is exacerbated further by a
rapidly rising urban population and with Sub-Saharan Africa’s urban population estimated
to increase to over 40% of its population within the next decade, it is fundamental that this issue is addressed. More
than 1,500 million people lack proper sanitation facilities and the
implications on health is significant (AMREF, 2013). With half of the world’s
hospital beds filled with patients suffering from water related disease and 80%
of illnesses in developing countries correlating with poor water and sanitation
conditions, it is evident that not enough has been done to facilitate basic sanitation
and in particular, in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Of course it would be unfair to dismiss the steps of improvements made through the 2015 MDGs. However it is clear that further progression will be necessary to achieve the sustainable development goals (SDGs) for 2016-2030, in hope to offer water and sanitation services to everybody within the next 15 years. As the implications of such problems affect the more vulnerable populations in SSA, I would like to use this opportunity to look into this area and highlight any impacts and solutions to achieve improved water and sanitation levels. Following posts will aim to delve into these areas through media, literature and article sources to hone in on more specific concerns of sanitation and water in Sub-Saharan Africa.
