HDR 2006 Chapter 1: Ending the Crisis in Water and Sanitation
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| Human Development Report 2006 - Beyond Scarcity: Power, Poverty and the Global Water Crisis |
| Report Overview | Chapter 1: Ending the Crisis in Water and Sanitation | Chapter 2: Water for human consumption | Chapter 3: The vast deficit in sanitation | Chapter 4: Water scarcity, risk and vulnerability | Chapter 5: Water competition in agriculture| | Chapter 6: Managing transboundary waters | Links to the Millennium Development Goals | Notes and Bibliography | UNDP Fast Facts |
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| Related WaterWiki articles:
Water Rights and Wrongs | Summary of Live Forum: HDR 2006 - From the Report to Action on the Ground |
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- Water for life, water for livelihoods
“By means of water”, says the Koran, “we give life to everything.” That simple teaching captures a deeper wisdom. People need water as surely as they need oxygen: without it life could not exist. But water also gives life in a far broader sense. People need clean water and sanitation to sustain their health and maintain their dignity. But beyond the household water also sustains ecological systems and provides an input into the production systems that maintain livelihoods.
Ultimately, human development is about the realization of potential. It is about what people can do and what they can become—their capabilities—and about the freedom they have to exercise real choices in their lives. Water pervades all aspects of human development. When people are denied access to clean water at home or when they lack access to water as a productive resource their choices and freedoms are constrained by ill health, poverty and vulnerability. Water gives life to everything, including human development and human freedom.
In this year’s Human Development Report we look at two distinct themes in the global water crisis. The first, explored in chapters 1–3, is water for life. Delivering clean water, removing wastewater and providing sanitation are three of the most basic foundations for human progress. We look at the costs of not putting in place these foundations and set out some of the strategies needed to bring universal access to water and sanitation within reach. The second theme, water for livelihoods, is the subject of chapters 4–6. Here we focus on water as a productive resource shared within countries and across borders, highlighting the immense challenges now facing many governments to manage water equitably and efficiently.
Some commentators trace the global challenge in water to a problem of scarcity. The spirit of Thomas Malthus, who in the 19th century disconcerted political leaders by predicting a future of food shortages, increasingly pervades international debates on water. With population rising and demands on the world’s water expanding, so the argument runs, the future points to a “gloomy arithmetic” of shortage. We reject this starting point. The availability of water is a concern for some countries. But the scarcity at the heart of the global water crisis is rooted in power, poverty and inequality, not in physical availability.
See also Water Scarcity
Introduction
Nowhere is this more apparent than in the area of water for life. Today, some 1.1 billion people in developing countries have inadequate access to water, and 2.6 billion lack basic sanitation.
Those twin deficits are rooted in institutions and political choices, not in water’s availability. Household water requirements represent a tiny fraction of water use, usually less than 5% of the total, but there is tremendous inequality in access to clean water and to sanitation at a household level. In high-income areas of cities in Asia, Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa people enjoy access to several hundred litres of water a day delivered into their homes at low prices by public utilities. Meanwhile, slum dwellers and poor households in rural areas of the same countries have access to much less than the 20 litres of water a day per person required to meet the most basic human needs. Women and young girls carry a double burden of disadvantage, since they are the ones who sacrifice their time and their education to collect water.
See also Women and Water - Gender Dimension in Water Governance
Much the same applies to water for livelihoods. Across the world agriculture and industry are adjusting to tightening hydrological constraints. But while scarcity is a widespread problem, it is not experienced by all. In waterstressed parts of India irrigation pumps extract water from aquifers 24 hours a day for wealthy farmers, while neighbouring smallholders depend n the vagaries of rain. Here, too, the underlying cause of scarcity in the large majority of cases is institutional and political, not a physical deficiency of supplies. In many countries scarcity is the product of public policies that have encouraged overuse of water through subsidies and underpricing.
There is more than enough water in the world for domestic purposes, for agriculture and for industry. The problem is that some people— notably the poor—are systematically excluded from access by their poverty, by their limited legal rights or by public policies that limit access to the infrastructures that provide water for life and for livelihoods. In short, scarcity is manufactured through political processes and institutions that disadvantage the poor. When it comes to clean water, the pattern in many countries is that the poor get less, pay more and bear the brunt of the human development costs associated with scarcity.
Human security, citizenship and social justice
Just over a decade ago Human Development Report 1994 introduced the idea of human security to the wider debate on development. The aim was to look beyond narrow perceptions of national security, defined in terms of military threats and the protection of strategic foreign policy goals, and towards a vision of security rooted in the lives of people.
Water security is an integral part of this broader conception of human security. In broad terms water security is about ensuring that every person has reliable access to enough safe water at an affordable price to lead a healthy, dignified and productive life, while maintaining the ecological systems that provide water and also depend on water. When these conditions are not met, or when access to water is disrupted, people face acute human security risks transmitted through poor health and the disruption of livelihoods.
In the world of the early 21st century national security concerns loom large on the international agenda. Violent conflict, concerns over terrorist threats, the proliferation of nuclear weapons and the growth of illicit trade in arms and drugs all pose acute challenges. Against this backdrop it is easy to lose sight of some basic human security imperatives, including those linked to water. The 1.8 million child deaths each year related to unclean water and poor sanitation dwarf the casualties associated with violent conflict. No act of terrorism generates economic devastation on the scale of the crisis in water and sanitation. Yet the issue barely registers on the international agenda.
See also Conflict and Water
It is not just the contrast with national security imperatives that is striking. Today, international action to tackle the crisis in HIV/AIDS has been institutionalized on the agenda of the Group of Eight countries. Threatened with a potential public health crisis in the form of avian flu, the world mobilizes rapidly to draw up a global plan of action. But the living reality of the water and sanitation crisis elicits only the most minimal and fragmented response. Why is that? One plausible explanation is that, unlike HIV/AIDS and avian flu, the water and sanitation crisis poses the most immediate and most direct threat to poor people in poor countries— a constituency that lacks a voice in shaping national and international perceptions of human security.
Apart from the highly visible destructive impacts on people, water insecurity violates some of the most basic principles of social justice. Among them:
- Equal citizenship. Every person is entitled to an equal set of civil, political and social rights, including the means to exercise these rights effectively. Water insecurity compromises these rights. A woman who spends long hours collecting water, or who suffers from constant water-related illness, has less capacity to participate in society, even if she can participate in electing her government.
- The social minimum. All citizens should have access to resources sufficient to meet their basic needs and live a dignified life. Clean water is part of the social minimum, with 20 litres per person each day as the minimum threshold requirement.
- Equality of opportunity. Equality of opportunity, a key requirement for social justice, is diminished by water insecurity. Most people would accept that education is integral to equality of opportunity. For example, children unable to attend school when they are afflicted by constant bouts of sickness caused by unclean water do not, in any meaningful sense, enjoy a right to education.
- Fair distribution. All societies set limits to the justifiable extent of inequality. Deep inequality in access to clean water in the home or productive water in the field does not meet the criterion for fair distribution, especially when linked to high levels of avoidable child death or poverty.
The idea of water as a human right reflects these underlying concerns. As the UN Secretary- General has put it, “Access to safe water is a fundamental human need and, therefore, a basic human right.” Upholding the human right to water is an end in itself and a means for giving substance to the wider rights in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other legally binding instruments—including the right to life, to education, to health and to adequate housing. Ensuring that every person has access to at least 20 litres of clean water each day to meet basic needs is a minimum requirement for respecting the right to water—and a minimum target for governments.
Human rights are not optional extras. Nor are they a voluntary legal provision to be embraced or abandoned on the whim of individual governments. They are binding obligations that reflect universal values and entail responsibilities on the part of governments. Yet the human right to water is violated with impunity on a widespread and systematic basis—and it is the human rights of the poor that are subject to the gravest abuse.
See also FAQ: The Right to Water
Reaching the Millennium Development Goal target in 2015 — a test of humanity
There is now less than 10 years to go to the 2015 target date for achieving the Millennium Development Goals—the time-bound targets of the international community for reducing extreme poverty and hunger, cutting child deaths, getting children an education and overcoming gender inequalities. Progress in each of these areas will be conditioned by how governments respond to the crisis in water.
The Millennium Development Goals provide a benchmark for measuring progress towards the human right to water. That is why halving the proportion of world population without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation— Goal 7, target 10— is a key target in its own right. But achieving that target is critical to the attainment of other goals. Clean water and sanitation would save the lives of countless children, support progress in education and liberate people from the illnesses that keep them in poverty.
See also Goal 7: Ensure environmental sustainability
The urgency of achieving the Millennium Development Goal for water and sanitation cannot be overstated. Even if the targets are achieved, there will still be more than 800 million people without water and 1.8 billion people without sanitation in 2015. Yet despite progress the world is falling short of what is needed, especially in the poorest countries. Changing this picture will require sustained action over the next decade allied to a decisive break with the current business as usual model.
The 2015 target date is important for practical and symbolic reasons. At a practical level it reminds us that time is running out—and that the deadline for the investments and policies needed to deliver results is fast approaching. Symbolically, 2015 matters in a deeper sense. The state of the world in that year will be a judgement on the state of international cooperation today. It will hold up a mirror to the generation of political leaders that signed the Millennium Development Goal pledge and deliver the verdict on whether the pledge was honoured in the breach or the observance.
Some time in 2015 another less important but no less symbolic event will take place. The US National Aeronautics and Space Administration will launch the Jupiter Icy Moons Project. Using technology now under development, a spacecraft will be dispatched to orbit three of Jupiter’s moons to investigate the composition of the vast saltwater lakes beneath their ice surfaces— and to determine whether the conditions for life exist. The irony of humanity spending billions of dollars in exploring the potential for life on other planets would be powerful— and tragic—if at the same time we allow the destruction of life and human capabilities on planet Earth for want of far less demanding technologies: the infrastructure to deliver clean water and sanitation to all. Providing a glass of clean water and a toilet may be challenging, but it is not rocket science.
Mahatma Gandhi once commented that “the difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world’s problems.” That observation has a powerful resonance for the Millennium Development Goals. The unprecedented combination of resources and technology at our disposal today makes the argument that the 2015 targets are beyond our reach both intellectually and morally indefensible. We should not be satisfied with progress that falls short of the goals set—or with half measures that leave whole sections of humanity behind.
Water for life — the global crisis in water and sanitation
Clean water and sanitation are among the most powerful drivers for human development. They extend opportunity, enhance dignity and help create a virtuous cycle of improving health and rising wealth.
People living in rich countries today are only dimly aware of how clean water fostered social progress in their own countries. Just over a hundred years ago London, New York and Paris were centres of infectious disease, with diarrhoea, dysentery and typhoid fever undermining public health. Child death rates were as high then as they are now in much of Sub- Saharan Africa. The rising wealth from industrialization boosted income, but child mortality and life expectancy barely changed.
Sweeping reforms in water and sanitation changed this picture. Clean water became the vehicle for a leap forward in human progress. Driven by coalitions for social reform, by moral concern and by economic self-interest, governments placed water and sanitation at the centre of a new social contract between states and citizens. Within a generation they put in place the finance, technology and regulations needed to bring water and sanitation for all within reach.
The new infrastructure broke the link between dirty water and infectious disease. By one estimate water purification explains almost half the mortality reduction in the United States in the first third of the 20th century. In Great Britain the expansion of sanitation contributed to a 15-year increase in life expectancy in the four decades after 1880.
See also Water and Health
The fault line between sanitation and water
In rich countries clean water is now available at the twist of a tap. Private and hygienic sanitation is taken for granted. Concern over water shortages may occasionally surface in some countries. But that concern has to be placed in perspective. Children in rich countries do not die for want of a glass of clean water. Young girls are not kept home from school to make long journeys to collect water from streams and rivers. And waterborne infectious disease is a subject for history books, not hospital wards and morgues.
The contrast with poor countries is striking. While deprivation is unequally distributed across regions, the facts of the global water crisis speak for themselves. Some 1.1 billion people in the developing world do not have access to a minimal amount of clean water. Coverage rates are lowest in Sub-Saharan Africa, but most people without clean water live in Asia. Deprivation in sanitation is even more widespread. Some 2.6 billion people— half the developing world’s population— do not have access to basic sanitation. And systemic data underreporting means that these figures understate the problem.
“Not having access” to water and sanitation is a polite euphemism for a form of deprivation that threatens life, destroys opportunity and undermines human dignity. Being without access to water means that people resort to ditches, rivers and lakes polluted with human or animal excrement or used by animals. It also means not having sufficient water to meet even the most basic human needs.
While basic needs vary, the minimum threshold is about 20 litres a day. Most of the 1.1 billion people categorized as lacking access to clean water use about 5 litres a day—one tenth of the average daily amount used in rich countries to flush toilets. On average, people in Europe use more than 200 litres—in the United States more than 400 litres. When a European person flushes a toilet or an American person showers, he or she is using more water than is available to hundreds of millions of individuals living in urban slums or arid areas of the developing world. Dripping taps in rich countries lose more water than is available each day to more than 1 billion people.
Not having access to sanitation means that people are forced to defecate in fields, ditches and buckets. The “flying toilets” of Kibera, a slum in Nairobi, Kenya, highlight what it means to be without sanitation. Lacking access to toilets, people defecate into plastic bags that they throw onto the streets. The absence of toilets poses particularly severe public health and security problems for women and young girls. In sanitation as in water, gender inequality structures the human costs of disadvantage.
Access to water and sanitation reinforces some long-standing human development lessons. On average, coverage rates in both areas rise with income: increasing wealth tends to bring with it improved access to water and sanitation. But there are very large variations around the average. Some countries—such as Bangladesh and Thailand in sanitation, and Sri Lanka and Viet Nam in water—do far better than would be expected solely on the basis of income. Others—such as India and Mexico for sanitation—do far worse. The lesson: income matters, but public policy shapes the conversion of income into human development.
The human development costs— immense
Deprivation in water and sanitation produces multiplier effects. The ledger includes the following costs for human development:
- Some 1.8 million child deaths each year as a result of diarrhoea—4,900 deaths each day or an under-five population equivalent in size to that for London and New York combined. Together, unclean water and poor sanitation are the world’s second biggest killer of children. Deaths rom diarrhoea in 2004 were some six times greater than the average annual deaths in armed conflict for the 1990s.
- The loss of 443 million school days each year from water-related illness.
- Close to half of all people in developing countries suffering at any given time from a health problem caused by water and sanitation deficits.
- Millions of women spending several hours a day collecting water.
- Lifecycles of disadvantage affecting millions of people, with illness and lost educational opportunities in childhood leading to poverty in adulthood.
To these human costs can be added the massive economic waste associated with the water and sanitation deficit. Measuring these costs is inherently difficult. However, new research undertaken for this year’s Human Development Report highlights the very large losses sustained in some of the world’s poorest countries. The research captures the costs associated with health spending, productivity losses and labour diversions.
Losses are greatest in some of the poorest countries. Sub-Saharan Africa loses about 5% of GDP, or some $28.4 billion annually, a figure that exceeds total aid flows and debt relief to the region in 2003. In one crucial respect these aggregate economic costs obscure the real impact of the water and sanitation deficit. Most of the losses are sustained by households below the poverty line, retarding the efforts of poor people to produce their way out of poverty.
On any measure of efficiency, investments in water and sanitation have the potential to generate a high return. Every $1 spent in the sector creates on average another $8 in costs averted and productivity gained. Beyond this static gain, improved access to water and sanitation has the potential to generate long-run dynamic effects that will boost economic efficiency.
Whether measured against the benchmark of human suffering, economic waste or extreme poverty, the water and sanitation deficit inflicts a terrifying toll. The flip-side is the potential for reducing that deficit as a means for human progress. Water and sanitation are among the most powerful preventive medicines available to governments to reduce infectious disease. Investment in this area is to killer diseases like diarrhoea what immunization is to measles—a life-saver. Research for the Report shows that access to safe water reduces child death rates by more than 20% in Cameroon and Uganda. In Egypt and Peru the presence of a flush toilet in the house reduces the risk of infant death by more than 30%.
A crisis above all for the poor
The crisis in water and sanitation is—above all— a crisis for the poor. Almost two in three people lacking access to clean water survive on less than $2 a day, with one in three living on less than $1 a day. More than 660 million people without sanitation live on less than $2 a day, and more than 385 million on less than $1 a day.
See also Fast Facts: Clean Water and Sanitation for the Poor and WATER SECURITY AND PRO-POOR GROWTH
These facts have important public policy implications. They point clearly towards the limited capacity of unserved populations to finance improved access through private spending. While the private sector may have a role to play in delivery, public financing holds the key to overcoming deficits in water and sanitation.
The distribution of access to adequate water and sanitation in many countries mirrors the distribution of wealth. Access to piped water into the household averages about 85% for the wealthiest 20% of the population, compared with 25% for the poorest 20%. Inequality extends beyond access. The perverse principle that applies across much of the developing world is that the poorest people not only get access to less water, and to less clean water, but they also pay some of the world’s highest prices:
- People living in the slums of Jakarta, Indonesia; Manila, the Philippines; and Nairobi, Kenya, pay 5–10 times more for water per unit than those in high-income areas of their own cities—and more than consumers pay in London or New York.
- High-income households use far more water than poor households. In Dar es Salam, Tanzania, and Mumbai, India, per capita water use is 15 times higher in high-income suburbs linked to the utility than in slum areas.
- Inequitable water pricing has perverse consequences for household poverty. The poorest 20% of households in El Salvador, Jamaica and Nicaragua spend on average more than 10% of their household income on water. In the United Kingdom a 3% threshold is seen as an indicator of hardship.
See also Linking poverty reduction and water management
Prognosis for meeting the Millennium Development Goal target
The Millennium Development Goals are not the first set of ambitious targets embraced by governments. “Water and sanitation for all” within a decade was among the impressive set of targets adopted following high-level conferences in the 1970s and the 1980s. Performance fell far short of the promise. Will it be different this time round?
In aggregate the world is on track for the target for water largely because of strong progress in China and India, but only two regions are on track for sanitation (East Asia and Latin America). Large regional and national variations are masked by the global picture.
- On current trends Sub-Saharan Africa will reach the water target in 2040 and the sanitation target in 2076. For sanitation South Asia is 4 years off track, and for water the Arab States are 27 years off track.
- Measured on a country by country basis, the water target will be missed by 234 million people, with 55 countries off track.
- The sanitation target will be missed by 430 million people, with 74 countries off track.
- For Sub-Saharan Africa to get on track, connection rates for water will have to rise from 10 million a year in the past decade to 23 million a year in the next decade. South Asia’s rate of sanitation provision will have to rise from 25 million people a year to 43 million a year.
The Millennium Development Goals should be seen as a minimum threshold of provision not as a ceiling. Even if they are achieved, there will still be a large global deficit. What is worrying about the current global trajectory is that the world is on course to finish below the floor defined by the Millennium Development Goal promise.
Closing the gaps between current trends and targets
Changing this picture is not just the right thing to do, but also the sensible thing to do. It is the right thing to do because water and sanitation are basic human rights—and no government should be willing to turn a blind eye to the current level of human rights violation or the associated loss of human potential. And it is the sensible thing to do because access to water and sanitation equips people to get themselves out of poverty and to contribute to national prosperity.
Quantifying the potential gains for human development from progress in water and sanitation is difficult. But best estimates suggest that the benefits heavily outweigh the costs. The additional costs of achieving the Millennium Development Goal on the basis of the lowest-cost, sustainable technology option amount to about $10 billion a year. Closing the gap between current trends and target trends for achieving the Millennium Development Goal for water and sanitation would result in:
- Some 203,000 fewer child deaths in 2015 and more than 1 million children’s lives saved over the next decade.
- An additional 272 million days gained in school attendance as a result of reduced episodes of diarrhoea alone.
- Total economic benefits of about $38 billion annually. The benefits for Sub-Saharan Africa-about $15 billion—would represent 60% of its 2003 aid flows. Gains for South Asia would represent almost $6 billion.
Can the world afford to meet the costs of accelerated progress towards water and sanitation provision? The more appropriate question is: can the world afford not to make the investments?
The $10 billion price tag for the Millennium Development Goal seems a large sum— but it has to be put in context. It represents less than five days’ worth of global military spending and less than half what rich countries spend each year on mineral water. This is a small price to pay for an investment that can save millions of young lives, unlock wasted education potential, free people from diseases that rob them of their health and generate an economic return that will boost prosperity.
Four foundations for success
If high-level international conferences, encouraging statements and bold targets could deliver clean water and basic sanitation, the global crisis would have been resolved long ago. Since the mid-1990s there has been a proliferation of international conferences dealing with water, along with a proliferation of high-level international partnerships. Meanwhile, there are 23 UN agencies dealing with water and sanitation.
So many conferences, so much activity—and so little progress. Looking back over the past decade, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that water and sanitation have suffered from an excess of words and a deficit of action. What is needed in the decade ahead is a concerted international drive starting with nationally owned strategies, but incorporating a global action plan. There are no ready-made blueprints for reform, but four foundations are crucial for success.
1) Make water a human right and mean it
All governments should go beyond vague constitutional principles to enshrine the human right to water in enabling legislation. To have real meaning, the human right has to correspond to an entitlement to a secure, accessible and affordable supply of water. The appropriate entitlement will vary by country and household circumstance. But at a minimum it implies a target of at least 20 litres of clean water a day for every citizen—and at no cost for those too poor to pay. Clear benchmarks should be set for progressing towards the target, with national and local governments and water providers held accountable for progress. While private providers have a role to play in water delivery, extending the human right to water is an obligation of governments.
2) Draw up national strategies for water and sanitation
All governments should prepare national plans for accelerating progress in water and sanitation, with ambitious targets backed by financing and clear strategies for overcoming inequalities. Water and, even more so, sanitation are the poor cousins of poverty reduction planning. They suffer from chronic underfinancing, with public spending typically less than 0.5% of GDP. Life-saving investments in water and sanitation are dwarfed by military spending. In Ethiopia the military budget is 10 times the water and sanitation budget—in Pakistan, 47 times. Governments should aim at a minimum of 1% of GDP for water and sanitation spending. Tackling inequality will require a commitment to financing strategies—including fiscal transfers, cross-subsidies and other measures—that bring affordable water and sanitation to the poor.
National strategies should incorporate benchmarks for enhanced equity including:
- Millennium Development Goals. Supplementing the 2015 target of halving the proportion of people without access to water and sanitation with policies to halve the gap in coverage ratios between rich and poor.
- Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers. Making water and sanitation key priorities, with clear goals and targets linked to medium-term financing provisions.
- Water providers. Ensuring that utilities, public and private, along with municipal bodies, include clear benchmarks for equity, with associated penalties for non compliance.
3) Support national plans with international aid
For many of the poorest countries development assistance is critical. Progress in water and sanitation requires large upfront investments with long payback periods. Constraints on government revenue limit the financing capacity of many of the poorest countries, while cost-recovery potential is limited by high levels of poverty. Most donors recognize the importance of water and sanitation. However, development assistance has fallen in real terms over the past decade, and few donors see the sector as a priority: the sector now accounts for less than 5% of development assistance. Aid flows will need to roughly double to bring the Millennium Development Goal within reach, rising by $3.6–$4 billion annually. Innovative financing strategies such as those provided for under the International Finance Facility are essential to provide upfront financing to avert the impending shortfall against the Millennium Development Goal target (see special contribution by Gordon Brown and Ngozi Okonjo- Iweala). Donors should act in support of nationally owned and nationally led strategies, providing predictable, long-term support. There is also scope for supporting the efforts of local governments and municipal utilities to raise money on local capital markets.
4) Develop a global action plan
International efforts to accelerate progress in water and sanitation have been fragmented and ineffective, with a surfeit of high-level conferences and a chronic absence of practical action. In contrast to the strength of the international response for HIV/AIDS and education, water and sanitation have not figured prominently on the global development agenda. Having pledged a global action plan two years ago, the Group of Eight countries have not set water and sanitation as a priority. The development of a global action plan to mobilize aid financing, support developing country governments in drawing on local capital markets and enhance capacity building could act as a focal point for public advocacy and political efforts in water and sanitation.
Further Readings
Read the Full Chapter 
Hdr 2006 chapter 1.pdf
Fast Facts: Clean Water and Sanitation for the Poor
Goal 7: Ensure environmental sustainability
Linking poverty reduction and water management
WATER SECURITY AND PRO-POOR GROWTH
Women and Water - Gender Dimension in Water Governance
Source
This article is based on the HDR 2006 Summary Report. HDR2006 English Summary.pdf
