Sustainable Water and Sanitation in Developing Countries-Learning Journal
With the reference year being 1990, this implies that approximately 260, 000 people on daily basis ought to have access to water sources that have been improved. Furthermore, approximately 370, 000 persons are projected to have gained access to significantly improved sanitation (WHO 2004, Figures and Facts). Of importance to note is the apparent fact that low and middle-income countries across the globe are still grappling with the challenge of having access to both safe drinking water and basic sanitation. The need to have this challenge addressed as soon as possible can not be overemphasised in this regard. Hence, this learning journal shall seek to present an exhaustive view of the aforementioned challenge with specific reference to the developing countries.
Extra Learning
In order to broaden my perspective with regard to the challenge of sustainable water and sanitation amongst developing countries, I decided to focus on water supply and sanitation from the World Water Council from their official website. In particular, my main area of emphasis was to have a holistic overview of the developing countries being able to access safe drinking water as well as sanitation in tandem with MDG 7, target 10. According to the World Water Council, one of the benefits of having all the regions of the world to access safe drinking water and sanitation is that it shall ensure for the respect of fundamental human values. Increasing access to safe drinking water and sanitation across the globe is an ethical and moral imperative that is deeply rooted in both religious and cultural traditions of each and every community or society. Equity, Dignity, solidarity and compassion are the four important values which are shared in all parts of the world. Against this backdrop, extending safe water supply as well as sanitation to the low and middle-income countries of the world shall greatly contribute towards the upholding of these values in every household. In recognition of this need, the United Nations in the year 2002 through General Comment 15 proclaimed that the each individual had the right to water.
This right is very explicit affirming that it is indeed indispensable aspect of ensuring human dignity in addition to being a pre-requisite for the upholding of the human rights as well. The other benefit carried with ensuring that developing nations have sustainable water and sanitation according to the council is captured in terms of improving the overall health within the community. Access to safe drinking water together with basic sanitation is very crucial towards ensuring that human health is preserved. Its role with respect to the health of children can not be over emphasised. It has been noted by the council and other literature that water-related illnesses are account for most of diseases as well as deaths amongst poor households within these developing nations. On a positive rejoinder, the World Health Organisation states that it is approximated that 1.6 million children die every year due to drinking unsafe water, lack of hygiene and poor sanitation. In order to achieve Millennium Development target 10 of Goal 7, WHO estimates that it shall have to prevent the deaths of about 470,000 annual.
Generation of economic benefits is the other merit of ensuring that every part of the globe has access to safe water and basic sanitation. As it has been reported by the World Water Council, WHO through one of its analysis revealed that realising MDG 7 shall bring to the fore significant economic gains. This analysis found out that investing 1 would translate to an economic return or yield ranging from 3 to 34 based on the region. This literature also states that households that have access to improved safe water and basic sanitation tend to suffer less mortality and morbidity that would be caused by water-related illnesses. The said benefit would actually include a 10 percent reduction in diarrheal episodes on the average across the globe. Health-related costs that would be avoided is estimated to reach 7.3 per annum with the global value of the working days among the adults that would be gained due to less diseases would increase to approximately 750 billion. The other benefit of being able to achieve the above stated target would be in terms of significant time savings by persons and household as well.
Better services due to the relocation of a borehole or a well to a site that is close to the respective user communities, installation of piped water supply within houses and construction of latrines close enough to homesteads would imply that individuals shall have to spend less time to access them contrary to the present-day scenario in the developing nations. The other component of economic benefits of achieving this target would be through enabling women and girls to have productive and better educational opportunities owing to the fact that they would be having both sanitation facilities and water close to their homes. Unlike is the case as of today, locating such facilities would ensure that there that there privacy is safeguarded in addition to enabling them to save time that they would otherwise have wasted fetching water from far flung areas. As of today, this is a very common occurrence in several African and Asian developing nations.
Provision of safe and adequate water can also be used towards the setting up or expansion of small and medium sized enterprises. By so doing, this shall increase the average household disposable income. Nationally, this would provide the much needed impetus to the increase of demand for agricultural products as well as tourism and thereby helping to foster national economic growth amongst these developing nations. In the overall, the above started benefits would culminate into significant improvement of life across all the ages. Hence, beginning from the age of 0 to about 4, child mortality would be significantly reduced. At the same time, between the age of 5 and 14 years, more children, especially girls would be given a perfect opportunity to attend school in the event that they have access to safe water as well as basic sanitation facilities nearby. In this way, children would be able to escape from the vicious cycle of family poverty that is very rampant in many developing countries. While at the age between 15 and 59 years, improved water and basic facilities for sanitation would result to the achievement of productivity gains within the developing countries. Persons aged above 60 years would be able to live relatively longer. That meeting the above target is an enormous challenge is a well known fact according to the World Water Council. That notwithstanding, there is somewhat a sense of recognition that it is extremely important for this target to be realised irrespective of the challenges. Change in attitudes and behaviours with respect to hygiene can not afford to be overlooked.
In recognition of this challenge, the UN Millennium Project Task Force on Water and Sanitation came up with ten key actions that are considered to be essential in meeting the MDGs. First, stakeholders and governments are required to prioritise the crisis of sanitation. Secondly, countries are called upon to put in place institutions and policies geared towards improving water supply and sanitation facilities. Third, donor agencies and governments must pursue investment and reforms simultaneously. Fourth, efforts that are geared towards target 10 of MDG 7 ought to focus on delivery of sustainable services. Fifth, donor agencies and governments should ensure that local authorities and communities are empowered in the management of water supply and delivery of sanitation services. Sixth, utilities and governments are challenged to ensure that those persons who can pay for such services actually pay to ensure for the maintenance or expansion. Seventh, in line with poverty reduction strategy, countries ought to formulate water resources development and management plans that are coherent and also support the realisation of MDGs. Eighth, governments private sector and civil society must operate in partnership to support water and basic sanitation services and technologies at every level. Ninth, financial, technological and institutional innovation ought to be promoted within the strategic areas. Lastly, UN system and its member states must ensure that they provide an effective and strong framework for the realisation of target 10 of MDG 7.
Extra Learning Log
Date Area of Learning undertaken Reason 15122009Millennium Development Goals in Context
Implementation framework of MDGs across the globe.
To have a deeper insight of MDGs with respect to the Developing nations19122009Overview of sanitation and water in developing African nations
Benefits of Achieving Safe water and Sanitation To broaden my perspective of sustainable water and sanitation in the context of developing nations
Description and Critical analysis of my Studies
Going through the various aspects of this module has in no doubt provided me with valuable knowledge on the issue of sustainable water and sanitation challenges within the developing countries. From my learning of water treatment, I came to appreciate the importance as well as the various methods of ensuring for the same. Most notably I was able to learn that it indeed involves engineering, science, art and business. Furthermore, the said treatment is required after and prior to its application and may include biological, mechanical, chemical and physical methods. By so doing, this ensures that the water is converted into environmentally acceptable and safe water. According to Tillman, (1996), water treatment encompasses the removal of bacteria, solids and inorganic or organic substances and thereby making it safe for use at household and industrial levels.
That water treatment is an issue that can not be ignored by anyone is a fact. Diseases and even deaths are the likely causes of accessing unsafe water due to lack of water treatment. Treatment of water can not at the same time be divorced from sewerage treatment. To this end, I have been able to learn that sewerage can actually be discharged into the ecological system once it has gone through aerated digestion as well as percolating filtration. However, in some instances additional treatment processes are normally required in order to make it as environmentally safe as possible. In the context of access to safe water and basic sanitation within developing nations, I learnt that both urban and rural households are faced with this challenge. At rural level, it is apparent that access to safe water and basic sanitation facilities is a mirage in many developing nations an aspect that has increased their predisposition to water-related illnesses. High poverty index on the other hand has not made things any better. The same is also the case in many urban slums amongst these developing nations. To add to that, this challenge has further been compounded by the fact that that majority of developing urban towns are currently faced with the problem of unsustainable development due the ever expanding urban population. Against this backdrop, even the so called economically secure households have had to contend with high cost of water. The water is also not sufficient to meet the needs of all the city dwellers or residents. The situation is even worse in the refugee camps in some of the developing nations such as Kenya, Uganda and Zimbabwe. However, a cross section of donor agencies in collaboration with both and local community or social work based organisations have in most cases tended to deal with this challenge by coming up with contingency measures. More often than not, this involves the provision of emergency sanitation in these camps.
However, unlike the industrialised nations, developing countries are faced with the challenge of lack of sound governance. This can be attributed to the existence of appropriate political frameworks in a majority of these nations and thus relegating the issue of access to clean water and basic sanitation to tertiary despite its obvious importance. Lack of accountability in some of the developing nations has also thwarted efforts by donor agencies to partner with the respective local governments towards addressing this problem. Through lecturer 4 water resources I learnt that water is renewable and sufficient to meet all the human needs at various levels. However, this is not the case in developing countries due to the apparent lack of structures and frameworks that are geared towards achieving sustainability of water and access to the same alongside provision of standarddecent sanitation facilities to their populace. Apart from the issue of lack of access to safe water as well as basic sanitation, I learnt that almost all developing nations are further faced with the challenge of poor domestic waste disposal. This is a common in urban and rural areas in addition to the refugee camps and thereby increasing their vulnerability to sanitation based illnesses as argued by Mara, (1996). Furthermore, this module has also improved my scope about the types of sanitation in middle and low-income nations.
The interrelationship between access to safe water and basic sanitation facilities with health policies is the other aspect that I was able to learn. In particular, I have appreciated that the latter is very important since it creates the framework for the realisation of the former. Faced with the challenge of lack of sound governance, most developing nations despite having such policies have been unable to implement these policies in the long run (Rushbrook and Pugh, 1999). That it is imperative for the developed nations to come and assist such nations can not be over emphasised. Hence, I acknowledge that the fact that water is renewable and available in different forms or sources implies that it can be made available to each and every citizen of any country subject to implementation of appropriate structures and frameworks to make it sustainable. That notwithstanding, it is note worthy that the ever growing population across the globe and rapid industrial development has continued to put a strain on the global water resources. I was also able to learn the various types of water supply systems amongst developing nations. From my personal opinion, such systems should be designed and implemented based on the unique needs of each nation in order to make them effective.
In this regard, the need for nations to put in place efficient and effective rain water harvesting can not be over looked. From this module, I was exposed to the various rain water harvesting techniques that can be used especially by developing nations to improve on their water supply at both national and household level. The global water resource base can also significantly be improved through re-use of water by ensuring that they properly treated before being released into the ecological system. Most of the natural water resources within these developing nations are also faced with the risk of agricultural-based pollution. My study of this module has enabled me to be aware of the fact that agriculture is the primary resource of economic livelihood support for households within these countries. In this respect, it is apparent that agricultural chemicals are greatly contributing to the pollution of such water resources. This has further been complicated by the absence of specialised equipment for use by the substance farmers who form the bulk of farmers within developing nations. This is further complicated due to the usual practice by such farmers to carry out intensified mixed farming near natural water sources and thereby depleting such reservoirs even further.
Going through the topic of flood and storm drainage has helped to expand my know-how regarding the impact of some of the natural disasters. From the topic, I learnt that majority of developing nations, other than having the challenge of lack of access to safe water and basic sanitation, are also ill-equipped to deal with storms and flooding. In most cases, they turn out to aggravate this problem. The present-day 21st Century effects and impacts of climate change have also increased their exposure to such risks. With respect to the issue of collection and disposal of wastes, I learnt that most of the developing countries do not have in place a comprehensive system and thereby compounding the problem of sanitation. Unless such issues are addressed, it would be impossible to achieve the MDG 7 target 10. Studying this module has not only provided valuable information with respect to sustainable water and sanitation in developing nations but rather expanded by professional expertise in this regard. In particular, I have been able to appreciate the existence of this challenge within developing countries. With this in mind, I am hold the view that the issue of achieving sustainable water and sanitation amongst these countries should be approached holistically and through teamwork by the worlds developed nations.
Addressing this challenge from this perspective carries with it the merit of enabling such vulnerable nations to be able to overcome this challenge ultimately. This would also improve bi-lateral relations across the globe and thereby fostering cohesion and economic development. However, this can not be achieved unless developing nations recognise and appreciate the essence of accountable governance unlike is the case currently.
Categories:
0 comments:
Post a Comment