Water for Life
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Water For Life
The water challenge is a governance challenge
No other environmental issue has spurred as much debate as the right to water. Although the human right to water has been affirmed by the United Nations and is considered central to human development and to attaining the Millennium Development Goals, the means by which people access water has been contentious. Some of the debate has centered on: how much do people have a right to? At what cost and through which means? These questions, however, are secondary to the fundamental human right - regardless of process or means, people need a basic amount of water for survival and for human dignity, and ecosystems need a basic amount for proper functioning.
In 2005, the United Nations launched The International Decade for Action: Water for Life (2005-2015), the Water for Life campaign is essentially a campaign about water governance and a call to action by governments, industry and communities around the world to address the pressing water security issues.
The recently launched Human Development Report entitled "Beyond Scarcity: power, poverty and the global water crisis" echoes the sentiments of the Water for Life campaign and underscores the problems that many countries face in meeting even the basic right to water. Some of these challenges are rooted in a lack of governance and investment in crumbling infrastructure, while other challenges are climatic. Regardless of the obstacles, people should have the basic amount of water for survival. The Human Development Report sets the basic minimum human requirement for clean water at 20L/day, a figure that seems insignificant in comparison with the average consumption in North America of 1300 L/day, yet over one billion people live in water poverty - unable to attain even this basic amount.
The World Water Development Report (2006) highlighted the disparity in access to water and sanitation worldwide and underscored the need for action, demonstrating the role water plays not only as a cross-cutting driver for human development and economic development but also for ecological balance and the maintenance of ecosystem services. The report also demonstrated progress in key areas such as an increased proportion of access to water in both urban and rural areas; yet these figures may not be entirely reflective of the actual local situations. In Europe and the CIS, official coverage and connection rates are high, upwards of 90% in many urban areas, but these statistics don't reveal the real issues of reliable, safe and continuous connection. In Albania for instance, urban water coverage is cited as 99%, but most of the population has access to water only a few hours a day, and that water is polluted and a public health hazard.
Also relevant to not only Europe and CIS but many economies in transition is the issue of investment in infrastructure and other means to access water and sanitation and re-mediate polluted waterways. As these countries move to market economies, less or little public funds are put into maintaining and upgrading collapsing infrastructure. This poses challenges to not only access to water but also sanitation, as sewerage systems are in disrepair, which often contributes to the pollution of degraded water bodies. In many smaller Romanian municipalities, for instance, traditional suppliers such as public utilities are no longer able to put money into maintaining infrastructure or building new connections as the population increases.
Water for All
In Tajikistan, outdated infrastructure and in some cases even absent infrastructure was a major obstacle to accessing water for the rural population.
Exacerbating the water challenges is the fact that the total availability of water resources is decreasing in many countries and regions either due to climate change, competition with water-intensive agriculture that relies on irrigation, the needs of a growing population and competition from neighbouring countries.
The water solutions
The exhibits presented in this knowledge fair speak to the main messages of the HDR in that they represent ways in which countries and communities have worked towards meeting the pressing water and human development challenges through innovative means and partnerships. The experiences in the knowledge fair are concrete examples of how concepts of water governance have been translated to on-the-ground results. In Tajikistan for instance, an innovative project was implemented to use labour remittances from workers to contribute to building up rural infrastructure for delivery of water supply. In total over US$7,000 was raised and the project will be scaled up in other communities. In Romania, the inclusion of a private sector partner through a concession will ensure that the growing population of the municipality of Megidia (over 45,000 people) will receive a safe and reliable water supply.
And in Cyprus, an innovative partnership ensured that another aspect of the Water for Life campaign was addressed - water for nature and community development. A partnership between academic institutions and civil society organizations addressed the growing concern over the fast disappearing wetlands of Cyprus; as a result of the project a set of policy recommendations was drafted to enhance the management of these wetlands.
References
See also
World Water Assessment Programme
UN World Water Development Report
The Human Rights-Based Approach to Development - The Right to Water
HDR 2006 - Beyond Scarcity: Power, Poverty and the Global Water Crisis
External Resources
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