Water and sanitation goals
Is progress in the pipeline?

In the 1980s, the world set the goal of water and sanitation for all by the end of the decade. By contrast, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are only to halve the proportions without affordable access to safe water and adequate sanitation by 2015. True, these are minimum targets and as Muller reports, South Africa halved those without access to safe water in only seven years and has now fixed 2008 as the goal for complete coverage of water for all and 2010 for sanitation.

	Water and sanitation goals By 2015, halve the proportion of people without access to safe drinking water. By 2015, halve the proportion of people without access to basic sanitation.

Goals can make a difference. Though the goals of the Development Decade for Safe Water and Sanitation (1981-1990) were demonstrably over-ambitious, the Decade was by no means a failure. In fact, the goals stimulated more progress for water and sanitation than the world has ever seen, before or since. Figures from WHO indicate that over the 1980s, an estimated 1.3 billion additional people got access to safe water and 960 million to basic sanitation, (an increase from 43% to 79% for water and from 25% to 55% for sanitation). In urban areas, over 550 million additional people gained access to both water and sanitation, raising urban coverage for water from 75% to 95% and for sanitation from 53% to 82%.

What now will it take to achieve the water MDG and the World Summit for Sustainable Development sanitation goal? The following steps are vital:

• All countries need to prepare National Plans of Action, developing their own targets to match the specifics of their country and in most cases, major regions and districts.
• Government budgets need to make provision for catalytic support to get action underway in line with the targets, to sustain action for the next decade and provide effective systems of maintenance.
• Donors need to commit adequate resources for long-term support and encouragement. Donors should also be prepared to give extra support if a country, showing progress to the goals, experiences setbacks from unforeseen difficulties such as drought, floods or collapse in the prices of its exports. The case studies in this special urban poverty issue offer further ideas, insights and motivation.

Community and country action

The new approach pioneered by Kar in Bangladesh has encouraged some 100 communities to clean up their villages to achieve '100% sanitation'. Participatory exercises, especially the 'walk of shame' through defecation areas, can prompt communities to deal with their sanitation challenge together. Without conventional subsidies or standard models, villagers decide for themselves what latrine they will construct. More than 20 new toilet models have emerged, some costing TK 70 each (US$ 1.27) or barely a Euro and less than a pound sterling.

Pathak describes the work of the Sulabh International Social Service Organisation in India, where over two decades it has built thousands of clean 'pay and use' public toilets in a dozen major cities and more than a million household latrines. Sulabh's social innovations and technology, developed over 20 years, have released more than 35000 'scavengers' and their families from the dirty and degrading work of cleaning out latrines.

Technologies

Industrial countries are wedded to the WC (the water closet) which use up to 20 litres of water with every flush. Two hundred years ago, the Rev. Henry Moule developed and patented the 'Earth Closet', using dry earth or ashes, requiring no water or expensive infrastructure and producing a useful fertiliser. Although this never caught on in the UK, modern variations are being developed because of their value to tropical countries. Obika et al., discuss how the uptake of latrines could be increased if designs responded to people's needs rather than relying on the standard current technology.

Roland Schertenleib and many others have been exploring low water or no water sanitation systems, adapted to peri-urban locations. These take a household-centred sustainable environmental approach, guided by the four 'Bellagio principles' of: human dignity and quality of life; decision-making involving all stakeholders; waste considered as a resource, with as much recycling as possible; and waste managed close to its source, with as little water as possible.

Soap is not a new technology but as Curtis shows, handwashing with soap could stop the progress of the 'microbe superhighway' and reduce the risk of diarrhoea by nearly half. New partnerships are underway with soap manufacturers in Ghana and India, using the skills of researchers and the marketing skills of the private sector.

Politics, provision and participation in peri-urban locations

This is the big challenge - with urban populations projected to increase over the next decade by about 45% in Africa, 30% in Asia and 20% in Latin America and the Caribbean. By comparison, the rate in Europe is well under half of one per cent. Moreover, as shown in the forthcoming UN-Habitat report, written by David Satterthwaite and Gordon McGranahan, current provision is often much less than estimates suggest. The future challenge is large, especially if one accepts that access to water and sanitation within 200 metres, let alone within a kilometre (the standard by which provision is often judged), is far from adequate. The problem is not just lack of funds or aid support, but the need for adequate provision to enable food preparation, laundry and personal hygiene, especially for young children and their mothers. The price must also be affordable rather than the very high charges that currently occur in many slums when water is scarce and monopoly rents can be charged.

Progress towards the water and sanitation goals in ways which respond to these local realities, will demand:

• competent city and municipal authorities accountable to their citizens and able to manage improved provision
• decentralised management for the provision of new infrastructure for water, drainage and maintenance with strong community involvement and participation of users, including women
• increased funding at the local level, which is currently often under-estimated
• new mechanisms for external donors to support local government, communities and even household initiatives. The need for external funding may sometimes be over-estimated and run the risk of becoming a source of waste and corruption.

As Mehta and Nicol show, none of this will be easy. Providing water and sanitation is never politically neutral. Ongoing research suggests that power relations within local government and communities are critical. Often local elite groups capture key resources established initially by community consensus and in response to the demands of the poor. Local-level power and politics therefore need to be a key part of planning and analysis for water and sanitation. Participatory arrangements need to include key groups and be checked continually to ensure they are maintaining the full consent of local women and men. Privatisation can help, but issues of power and control will remain important and sanitation and latrine provision must be included not, as is too often the case, neglected.

Privatisation takes many forms, as the report by Calaguas et al. on WaterAid and Tearfund's study of the impact of privatisation in 12 developing countries indicates. In most cases, shifting responsibility from public to private hands seems to leave the poor where they always were - largely invisible and passive, rather than active recipients, at least with respect to water and sanitation projects. But they are not passive with respect to charges. Increased tariffs often mean the poor pay over 100 times more than the better off, in proportion to their income.

What can be done? Government policy must be shaped to regulate services and pay attention to the needs of the poor, not just the better off. The private sector should be encouraged to engage meaningfully with poorer communities. They also need to offer cheaper technology and less expensive financing options. As was done in Metro Manila, the basic contracts for private sector participation need to build in clear obligations to ensure 100% coverage of poorer communities.

How can the voices of the urban poor be better heard? Joshi and Fawcett are researching just this question. Planners of water and sanitation solutions all over the world need to start by finding out the problems, doubts and issues which the poor themselves are raising. But how can this be done? There are no general answers. Town planners, sanitation and water engineers and company executives, not to mention politicians and aid donors, need to develop their own ways to reach out to poor communities in areas where they are active.

All the MDGs are important. The achievement of each will help the achievement of others. Ensuring the achievement of the sanitation and water goals will not only improve health, it will reduce child mortality and ease the time burden on women and girls, thereby helping free time and energy for other efforts towards poverty reduction and for girls to attend school.

Because of this, supporters of the sanitation and water goals need to be advocates for all the MDGs - as well as the partnership of international actions to create a more enabling environment without which most of the poorer countries will be unable to achieve the goals. These actions include: accelerated debt relief, improved access to developed country markets for exports and better focused aid. Also at this time of threats of war and terrorism, action needs to be broadened to include the links between war, conflict and terrorism and reduce the risks of destroying or poisoning facilities on which people in all countries depend for safe water and sanitation.

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

T +44 (0) 1273 878772
F +44 (0) 1273 621202
R.Jolly@ids.ac.uk
www.wsscc.org

Sir Richard Jolly is Chairperson of the Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council and Honorary Professorial Fellow and Research Associate at the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex.

See also

• 'Delivering Clean Water and Sanitation for All', in 'Targeting Development: critical perspectives on the Millennium Development Goals', R. Black & H. White (eds), Routledge, London, by R. Jolly, (forthcoming 2003)
• 'VISION 21: A Shared Vision for Hygiene, Sanitation and Water Supply and A Framework for Action', WSSCC, Geneva, 2000
• 'Drinking-Water and Sanitation, 1981-1990, A Way to Health', WHO, Geneva, 1981
• 'Global Water Supply and Sanitation Assessment 2000 Report', WHO, Geneva, 2000
• 'Water and Sanitation in the World's Cities: Local Action for Global Goals', UN-Habitat, Earthscan, London, 2003

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