Globally, the lack of access to clean water and sanitation facilities results in the deaths of 3,900 children daily. The importance of water and sanitation is recognised in the Millennium Development Goals. What will it take to expand water supply and sanitation coverage to the extent necessary to achieve them? How can water use be optimised to achieve the rest of the Goals?

The Millennium Project Task Force on Water and Sanitation was created to advise on how Target 10 of the MDGs – halving the number of people without access to sustainable safe drinking water and basic sanitation by 2015 – can be achieved.  They looked primarily at domestic water and sanitation, but also at the wider context of freshwater resource management, with its consequences for the environment, food security, health and gender equality.

The importance of safe drinking water is well-recognised, but the fact that over 40 percent of the global population does not have access even to a pit latrine is often overlooked. This is important both because hygiene is a pre-requisite for health and because lack of toilets denies people, especially women and girls, their rights to privacy and dignity. Achieving sanitation goals requires education and changes in attitude, although the focus of funding and interventions tend to concentrate on infrastructure provision.

The Task Force identified a number of obstacles to expanding access:

• Knowledge and understanding among policymakers about technical issues and the importance of water and sanitation is lacking.
• Civil society voices go unheard and transparency is lacking.
• Institutions that should take responsibility may not exist or are poorly run, while ownership of infrastructure and responsibility for service provision is unclear.
• Poverty holds investment back, both at household and government level. In a number of countries subsidies exist that unfairly help those who can afford to pay. Poor people who cannot access network water often pay more in the informal market.
• Over-complicated and unsustainable technology that cannot be maintained by the community is chosen too often, although many cheap and simple technologies exist.
• Few national institutions exist with specific responsibility for sanitation and there is a lack of clarity over whether it is a household or community responsibility, so that it falls off the agenda.

If the Millennium Development Goals are to be successful, addressing water and sanitation is essential. To achieve target 10 and contribute to the other goals, the Task Force identified the following actions:

• Sanitation and hygiene must become equal in importance with water provision, which requires work on knowledge and attitudes as well as infrastructure. Women’s needs must also move up the agenda.
• Investment should take place in parallel with institutional reform and capacity building. Donors should not wait for capacity to be in place before they begin investment in service provision.
• Making sure services are sustainable requires greater attention. Responsibility should be devolved locally, technologies need to be locally appropriate and infrastructure provision must be followed up with service delivery, monitoring and evaluation.
• Governments and utilities should ensure that who can pay should do so, to fund operation, maintenance and service expansion; at the same time the needs of the poorest households should still be met.
• National poverty reduction strategies should include effective water resource management plans that address all of the MDGs.
• Technological innovation is necessary in some underserved areas, such as simple sewage treatment, but innovation in institutions, policy and finance are equally important.
• The United Nations and its member states should increase their level of assistance as well as their technical ability to assist.

Source(s):
Health, Dignity, and Development: What Will It Take?’ Stockholm International Water Institute, SIWI, and United Nations Millennium Project, New York, Kristen Lewis, Roberto Lenton and Albert Wright 2005 Full document.

Funded by: Swedish Water House

id21 Research Highlight: 24 June 2005

Further Information:
Kristen Lewis
Task Force 7 on Water and Sanitation
UN Millennium Project
2F Lamont Hall
61 Route 9W- PO Box 1000
Palisades, NY 10964-8000
USA

Contact the contributor: tf7info@unmillenniumproject.org

United Nations Millennium Project

The Swedish Water House/SIWI
Hantverkargatan 5
SE-112 21 Stockholm
Sweden

Tel: + 46 8 522 139 60
Fax: + 46 8 522 139 61
Contact the contributor: info@swedishwaterhouse.se

Swedish Water House, Stockholm International Water Instiute (SIWI), Sweden

Other related links:
'Halfway to 2015: is the water and sanitation Millenniumm Development Goal achievable?'

WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme for water supply and sanitation

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