Water and Development: Children II

'One step away..'

The effects of increasing labour burden to collect water on young children in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Increasing Labour Burden:

With the UN estimating that SSA loses 40 billion hours per year collecting water, this domino effect on the population is complex and multi-folding where there is a need to look at it from a children's perspective.  

In 2012, it was estimated that over two-thirds of the population in SSA had to leave their home to fetch water for both domestic and drinking purposes, placing them at risk of negative health outcomes due to the continuous duty of having to carry the heavy water. In the paper for water collection labour among women and children (Graham et al., 2016), the results show that among households who spend more than 30 minutes collecting water, females were the main collectors in Sub-Saharan Africa. This ranged from 46% in Liberia to a shocking 90% in Ivory Coast. Females are at greater risk of assaults, sexual attacks and gaining health problems as they are naturally weaker than males. Yet at a percentage of 62% to 38% (female children to male children), it was interesting to find that even among children, it was the females who were more likely to be responsible for water collection.

The burden of fetching water comes at an opportunity cost for children as they miss out on education or income generating activities (Pickering and Davis, 2012). Some children are often too young to work or are involved in hazardous activities whilst fetching water that may compromise their physical and social circumstance; limiting their opportunity for self-development through education (UNICEF). By enhancing access to safer water, young children around the world can gain more than 413 million days of health. I personally found this statistic very shocking and was intrigued to find out more about the health effects labour burden has on children. In Geere's (2010) paper on domestic water carrying and its implications for health, qualitative research found that many of the children found a positive correlation between how many trips the children took daily and their health deteriorating. Further empirical evidence is provided by Pickering and Davis' (2012) paper as the results showed that a 5 minute decrease in the time spent on collecting water led to a 14% drop in diarrheal risk and a 15 minute decrease in time resulted in a 41% drop for children under the age of 5. 

When talking about improving the facilities to meet adequate water and sanitation requirements, we often place an emphasis on the quality of hygiene of the implementation and effectiveness of these water infrastructures. However, the research on labour collection among women and children implied that reducing the time cost of collection water (Graham et al. 2016) should be made a priority for water infrastructure investments. 

I personally found this paper a memorable read as I found myself shocked at the percentage of illnesses that could be reduced simply by reducing the distance of fetching water by just a few minutes! As a young adult, I still remember my childhood very well and to think that these young female children are having to go out daily to collect heavy loads of water at the cost of their own health and education and compare it with my childhood, makes me feel very grateful but also incredibly sad for these children. 

Geere JA, Hunter PR, Jagals P (2010) Domestic water carrying and its implications for health: a review and mixed methods pilot study in Limpopo Province, South Africa. Environ Health 9: 52. doi: 10.1186/1476-069X-9-52. pmid:20796292
Graham, J.P., Hirai, M. and Kim, S.S., 2016. An Analysis of Water Collection Labor among Women and Children in 24 Sub-Saharan African Countries. PloS one, 11(6), p.e0155981.

Pickering AJ, Davis J (2012) Freshwater availability and water fetching distance affect child health in sub-Saharan Africa. Environmental Science and Technology 46: 2391–2397. doi: 10.1021/es203177v. pmid:22242546

Water and Development: Children

'It cannot be business as usual..'

The effects of poor sanitation and increasing burden to collect water on young children in Sub-Saharan Africa will be addressed over two posts. 

Poor Sanitation:

In the previous blog, I briefly addressed how the Millenium Development Goals provided a policy framework and international targets in an attempt to tackle prevailing challenges that hindered growth and global development. Yet, under target 7, the benchmark for sanitation was underachieved. Children need to be in a safe and clean environment to ensure normal growth, development and well-being. However, the ambition of global policies in addressing sanitation and development priorities for children are significantly inadequate. The international public health community often focuses on malaria, TB and HIV/AIDS but what kills more children than these 3 diseases combined is diarrhea. Every day, 500 children die in Sub-Saharan Africa due to diarrheal diseases (UNICEF, 2015) and more needs to be done to tackle this matter.

Batram and Cairncross (2010) Deaths and Disabilities related to Water Sanitation and Hygiene

Shockingly, nearly 1 in 5 people defecates in the open across the world (Bartram & Cairncross, 2010) with more people defecating in the open now than they did in 1990. This is a growing concern as it leads to water contamination, a positive correlation with diarrheal diseases and a proven increase in stunting among children. Water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) must be addressed if Sub-Saharan Africa want to improve their social and economic development in the long run as a global competitor. The level of disparity between rich and poor is huge in this region as the poor population are more than 15 times likely to defecate openly since they lack basic facilities (Irin News, 2011). Whilst the different governments aim to focus on health and education, unless WASH is tackled, educational progress will not occur as children's health deteriorate and they miss out on education. Historically, in developed economies, sanitation has been vital to increasing living standards and fostering economic growth and yet this is not being identified by the governments of Sub-Saharan Africa. With minimal attention and funding allocated to this issue by official authorities and bodies, there is potential for poor sanitation to be reduced with a simple measure - soap (UNICEF, 2015).

Nearly 4.2% deaths per year could be prevented if everyone practiced basic hygiene and had access to safe drinking water and reliable sanitation. That is around 2.4 million people, of which majority are children in developing countries. These basic needs are what Cairncross and Bartram (2010) refers to as the 'forgotten foundations of health' and can be largely preventable with proven cost-effective interventions. Cairncross and Curtis (2003) talk about the provision of soap which is in-expensive and how hand washing with soap reduces the risk of endemic diarrhea, respiratory and skin infections. This would facilitate an improved and healthier lifestyle for many children in Sub-Saharan Africa as the implementation would be one of the cheaper and more efficient methods. The issue then lies in the lack of awareness and knowledge where even health clinics in SSA lack the basic necessity of a hand-washing facility. A greater focus in promoting more effective use of soap and innovative inventions could play a vital role in Sub-Saharan Africa tackling sanitation (UNICEF, 2015).

The new Sustainable Development Goals promise to bring affordable and universal access to sanitation by 2030. Yet with a rapidly rising population, this could potentially outstrip the little existing efforts of the government to provide essential services (Huffington Post, 2015). Countries within Sub-Saharan Africa tend to allocate a tiny proportion of their GDP into improving sanitation and hygiene efforts and thus as Manuel Fontaine, UNICEF regional director for West and Central Africa states... 'it cannot be business as usual. The pace of progress has to speed up exponentially... and it's going to take strong policies; robust financing; and a major shift in priorities among those who have the power to act' (UNICEF, 2015). However in the mean time, I'd like to think that greater promotion of soap could really make an impact on young children as it has proven to reduce negative health effects.

Reference:

Bartram, J. and Cairncross, S., 2010. Hygiene, sanitation, and water: forgotten foundations of health. PLoS Med, 7(11), p.e1000367. 

Curtis, V. and Cairncross, S., 2003. Effect of washing hands with soap on diarrhoea risk in the community: a systematic review. The Lancet infectious diseases, 3(5), pp.275-281.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/about-500-children-die-daily-in-sub-saharan-africa-due-to-lack-of-clean-water-sanitation_us_56704063e4b0e292150f4310

http://www.irinnews.org/news/2011/11/18/sub-saharan-sanitation-targets-%E2%80%9Ctwo-centuries-away%E2%80%9D

http://www.who.int/ceh/publications/statistics/en/

http://www.who.int/ceh/risks/cehwater/en/

http://www.unicef.org/media/media_86521.html