Africa is facing a water and sanitation crisis. An estimated one in three Africans do not have access to adequate water supply and sanitation facilities. In sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) 40% of people lack access to a safe water supply and almost half suffer from water related diseases. In the face of these statistics, can the water and sanitation goals be met in Africa?

South Africa’s new Department of Water Affairs and Forestry (DWAF) reports on the country’s experience with water supply and demonstrates that they can. In the first seven years of democratic government in South Africa, seven million rural people were provided with clean water, thus meeting the Millennium target, of halving those without access by 2015, 14 years early. It now aims to achieve full coverage by reaching another seven million by the year 2008.

However, sanitation progress has been much slower, but has now become a national political priority following a cholera outbreak in KwaZulu-Natal in 2000. In response to this wake-up call, South Africa aims to address the entire sanitation backlog by 2010 by:

• establishing a dedicated programme within the DWAF, which is responsible for co-ordinating efforts to increase sanitation with other government departments such as Health, Education, Housing and Public Works
• building capacity in the three levels of government, civil society and local communities
• investing heavily in sanitation delivery and dramatically increasing the number of toilets; by the end of this financial year, the government aims to have constructed 55 000 toilets serving approximately 434 000 people
• launching the Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council-initiated Water, Sanitation and Hygiene for All (WASH) campaign to schools, churches and the general population to encourage positive changes in hygiene behaviour and to link water, sanitation and hygiene.

During apartheid, South Africa was a relatively well-off, albeit starkly unequal, middle-income country. With apartheid overthrown, it has been relatively straightforward to redistribute national tax revenues to fund infrastructure that meets the basic needs of the country’s poor population. But how can this process be replicated in poorer countries? What is the global equivalent of ending apartheid in South Africa?

The DWAF recommends that achieving the water and sanitation goals globally will depend on:

• decentralising the management of water services and aid budgets
• taking a global approach to public finance to meet basic needs in poor communities which may place responsibilities for funding at a regional or global level
• urging countries that receive aid to set up management structures and means of evaluating external and internal accountability
• ceasing to make private sector involvement a pre-condition of water sector support thus enabling governments and communities to make their own choices about the role of the private sector in water supply. This may encourage more appropriate and successful private sector interventions to develop.

id21 Research Highlight: 10 March 2003

Further Information:
Mike Muller
Director General
Department of Water Affairs and Forestry
Private Bag X313
Pretoria 0001
South Africa

Tel: +27 12 336 7500
Fax: +27 12 324 6592
Contact the contributor: MikeMuller@dwaf.gov.za

Department of Water Affairs and Forestry, South Africa

Other related links:
'New roles, new rules: does private sector participation benefit the poor?'

'Politics and provision On-the-ground realities of water and sanitation development'

'Soap: the missing ingredient in the water and sanitation mix'

'Transforming with technology in India'

'Can social marketing increase demand and uptake of sanitation?'

'Subsidy or self-respect? Lessons from Bangladesh'

'Water and sanitation goals: is progress in the pipeline?'