By Kemal Dervis and Trevor Manuel
In the 1970s, the Club of Rome and others warned of coming dire
scarcities of food, oil and other essentials, the seemingly
inexorable consequence of rising demand for limited resources.
More recently, we have heard forecasts of inevitable future
"water wars," predictions rooted in fears that there is simply not
enough fresh water to meet the needs of an expanding and quickly
urbanizing global population.
The concern is understandable: There are now more than 1 billion
people with no regular access to clean water for drinking, bathing,
cooking or basic sanitation. And the consequences are already
appallingly evident: An estimated 2 million children die annually
because their families don't have potable water or functioning
toilets.
Yet a rational analysis of the water problem shows that there is
no objective reason financial, logistical or geographical why the
poor cannot be provided with enough clean water to meet their basic
human needs. As we have seen with staple grains and hydrocarbons,
the supply and delivery of crucial goods is the result of many
variables, some inherently unpredictable, from shifting market
incentives and technological innovation to public investment and
policy frameworks. And sometimes the missing ingredient is
political will.
?
In Cape Town last Thursday, the United Nations Development Program
launched a pioneering study that debunks many of the myths of the
worldwide water crisis among them the inevitability of cross-border
conflict and suggests many practical solutions.
The central argument of the newly released 2006 Human
Development Report, "Beyond scarcity: Power, poverty and the global
water crisis," is that access to a safe and affordable water supply
should be considered a basic human right. Governments can and
should recognize this right by ensuring that all citizens have
access to a minimum of 20 liters of clean water per day, and that
those who cannot afford to pay get it for free.
Unquestionably, many parts of the planet are faced with acute
water shortages, a problem which is being exacerbated by global
warming. Whether it is water or the broader problem of global
warming, the challenge is fundamentally not one of aggregate
resources, but rather one of the priorities of political leaders,
nationally and internationally.
One of the targets of the Millennium Development Goals is to
halve the proportion of people in the world without access to safe
drinking water by 2015. If we continue with business as usual, 234
million people will miss that basic water target.
All too often, water pricing operates on the perverse principle
that the poorer you are, the more it costs. Urban slum residents
pay some of the world's highest prices for water. The poorest
households of El Salvador, Nicaragua and Jamaica devote more than
10 percent of their income to water; in the United Kingdom, by
contrast, spending more than 3 percent of family earnings on water
bills is considered an economic hardship.
Too much of the policy discussion on water delivery has been
dominated by a dead-end debate on privatization versus State
ownership. This is a false choice: There is a wide range of
rational financial and policy approaches for securing clean water
supplies, with most relying on some combination of public and
private sector involvement. The real challenge is how to get
potable water to those who can least afford to pay.
Households hooked up directly to municipal water pipes typically
get the cheapest water. The poor have to go through a web of
intermediaries tanker truck operators, vendors and other water
suppliers to purchase their water supplies. Every step they are
forced to take away from the water source adds to the price.
In South Africa, the basic policy framework for a solution is
now in place. Access to water was one of the defining racial
divides during apartheid. In the post-apartheid period, the
adoption of a rights-based approach to water supply created a
legitimate sense of entitlement among citizens, empowering
communities to hold local governments, private utilities and the
national government to account.
The government used its regulatory powers to require all
municipalities to provide a basic minimum of 25 liters per day free
of charge to each household, with the target of achieving free
basic water for all by 2008, with no household more than 200 meters
from a water source. The task is not yet complete, but South
Africa's citizens rightly expect the government to keep its
promises.
The remote provincial towns and the burgeoning mega cities of
the developing world all need major investments in water utilities.
This will be costly, and in many cases impossible without financial
help. But the ultimate price of a failure to invest in clean water
supplies in healthcare costs, lost productivity, and ultimately,
human lives far outweighs the expense of spending what is necessary
now.
The emerging industrial powerhouses of the 19th century faced
the same problem. Infant mortality rates in New York and London
were similar then to levels seen in the developing world today and
for the same basic reasons. Those cities invested massively in
public water utilities that rapidly reduced gastrointestinal
disease and built a foundation for economic growth and a rising
quality of life. It can be done.
The 2006 Human Development Report urges every developing country
to prepare a national plan to accelerate progress in water and
sanitation, with ambitious targets backed with at least 1 percent
of GDP, and clear strategies for overcoming inequalities.
Currently, national public spending on public water supplies is
typically less than 0.5 percent of GDP.
The report also calls for a Global Action Plan under G8
leadership to put water and sanitation problems front and centre on
the world development agenda. The authors make a persuasive case
for an additional US$3.4 billion to US$4 billion in annual
international aid for water and sanitation assistance that should
be considered an overdue investment, with enormous long-term
returns in health and productivity and basic quality of life.
Each of the eight Millennium Development Goals is inextricably
tied to the next, so if we fail in the water and sanitation goal,
hope of reaching the other seven also rapidly fades. We have a
collective responsibility to succeed. On both practical and ethical
grounds, it is difficult to imagine a better investment in the
health and well-being of the world's poor.
Kemal Dervis is UNDP Administrator, and Trevor Manuel is
South African Finance Minister.
(China Daily November 14, 2006)
