Water and sanitation for all: where are we now?

In 2000, over a billion people lacked access to safe water and 2.4 billion lacked access to adequate sanitation facilities. Although most developing countries are moving in the right direction, many are lagging. Review of progress suggests that with political commitment, the right policies and modest allocations of finance, the global targets for safe water, sanitation and hygiene awareness can be met.

Water, adequate sanitation and good levels of hygiene are basic human rights. The Millennium Development Goal (MDG) for water is to halve the proportion of the world’s population without sustainable access to safe drinking water by 2015. The World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg in 2002 and the Vision 21 report in 2000 set similar targets for improving access to adequate sanitation facilities and raising knowledge of basic hygiene. Individual countries are expected to apply these targets on a national level, and if they choose, also within regions.

Drawing on work in the UN and various research institutes, a paper from the Institute of Development Studies in the UK outlines the prospects of achieving the global targets for 2015 and lists key issues to be addressed by donors and national policy makers.

Key findings include:

• About half the developing world’s population live in countries currently on track to meet the 2015 targets.
• Given the size of their populations, success in China and India will be key to achieving the worldwide goals. Each is on track to achieve the MDG for safe water, but both need to double their current rate of improvement for sanitation facilities.
• South Africa is the only country in sub-Saharan Africa which has achieved the MDG on safe water, which shows what governments can achieve in this area when there is strong political will.

The global targets for the MDG on safe water and the goals for improved sanitation and practice of basic hygiene are challenging, but countries in all regions have shown that rapid progress is possible. In general, the goals are within the grasp of most countries and communities, providing there is serious commitment to community action and reasonable allocation of resources.

Specifically, the author recommends that policy makers and governments focus on:

• widespread social and community involvement and action to mobilise additional finances and labour, with an emphasis on the involvement of women in planning, management and community action
• increased use of simple low-cost technologies and approaches
• better monitoring of progress with more public dissemination of results
• a role for private sector involvement in water and sanitation provision, in particular for small-scale local craftsmen and businesses
• a pragmatic, politically acceptable and equitable approach to charging for water and sanitation services
• directing resources to rural areas and the poorest urban areas; governments should direct 20 percent of total budgetary expenditures and donors should direct 20 percent of total aid to the provision of basic services to generate the financial resources required to achieve the goals in these priority areas.

Source(s):
‘Clean Water for All’ by Richard Jolly in Richard Black and Howard White (eds.), Targeting Development: Critical Perspectives on the Millennium Development Goals, London: Routledge, 2004

id21 Research Highlight: 22 February 2005

Further Information:
Richard Jolly
Institute of Development Studies
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9RE
UK

Tel: +44 (0) 1273 606261
Fax: +44 (0) 1273 621202/691647
Contact the contributor: r.jolly@ids.ac.uk

Institute of Development Studies (IDS), UK

Other related links:
'Working together: a ‘best practice’ in rural water supply and sanitation in Africa

'People not projects – the low-technology approach to improving rural water supply

'Wasting wastewater: new scope for decentralised management and wastewater re-use?'

'Beyond the source: keeping water clean in developing countries'

'As urban sanitation needs go unmet, is it time to respond strategically?'

'Meeting the MDG water and sanitation target. A mid-term assessment of progress' from UNICEF

Millennium Task Force on Water and Sanitation - UNDP