Achieving the MDGs of Water and Sanitation in Sub ... - UNU-IAS

Achieving the MDGs of Water and Sanitation in 

Sub-Saharan Africa: Beyond the Rhetoric, How 

to Make it Happen? 

Albert Djemetio, Ph.D. 

JSPS-UNU Postdoctoral Fellow 

Water Seminar in Prelude to the 5 th World Water Forum 

UNU-IAS, March 10, 2009 

Albert Djemetio Water Seminar, UNU-IAS, March 10, 2009 

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Presentation Outline 

• African water and sanitation in the international 

agenda 

• Water and Sanitation Issues in Sub-Saharan 

Africa 

• Understanding the status quo of Water and 

Sanitation sector in Sub-Saharan Africa 

• Fostering Implementation of water and 

sanitation principles: National and International 

responsibilities 

• Which Pathways to turn International 

Conviction into Real Actions? 


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Why Sub-Saharan Saharan Africa and not Africa? 

-Physical water-scarcity: North-Africa does not have 

enough available water to produce enough food. 

Virtual water as a solution 

-Economic water-scarcity: Sub-Saharan Africa has 

enough primary sources of water, but lack 

infrastructures and institutions to make use of it. 

-Sub-Saharan Africa has the lowest drinking water and 

sanitation coverage in the world. One in two people 

has no easy access to drinking water and two out of 

three to proper sanitation facilities (OECD, 2007) 

-Exception made of Northern Africa, Mauritius and 

South Africa. Uganda has tripled the number of people 

with access to drinking water between 1990 and 2006, 

and Tanzania has ensured that 90 per cent of the 

population have access to some form of sanitation 


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Concluding Remarks from Important Pilot 

Field Projects 

• Policy and Institutional Development in the Water 

and Sanitation Sector in Cameroon: Research project 

of the CAW-MINE Research Programme Consortium 

(2002- 2004) 

• WatSan and PRSP’s Inception Phase in Cameroon and 

Chad: Redesigning Water Supply and Sanitation 

Programmes under the PRSP (2005-2008) 

2008) 

- The Water Supply and Sanitation (WSS) sector in SSA 

is currently benefiting from an unprecedented level of 

policy and financial support but converting this 

support into implementation ti with a real impact on 

the poor remains a major challenge which will make 

the MDGs of Water and Sanitation a long dream 


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Some Grim Pictures of Water and Sanitation Situations to 

understand the issue in SSA 

. 

Source: iAfrica Photos/Eric Miller 


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Cont… 

Source: Internet images 


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Cont… 

Source: Internet Images 


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Cont… 



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Cont… 

Source: Internet images 


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Cont… 



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Reading and Understanding the 

Facts 

• Responsibility for collecting water in Africa falls 

predominantly to women and children, as does 

the responsibility for caring for those suffering 

from water and sanitation-related n diseases. 

Women are disproportionately affected by lack of 

safe water (WHO/UNICEF, 2008:35). 

• The social consequences: 

- Imperiled physical wellbeing and sexual 

harassment. 

- Limited access to education 

- Limited i access to free and equal participation i i in 

the economic and social life of their communities 

(UN-Water 2008). 


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Cont… 

Cause and total number of death in SSA 

Source: WHO (2007) 


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Comments 

• Water-related diseases kill a child every 8 

seconds, and are responsible for 80% of all 

illnesses and deaths in the SSA more than the 

number killed in wars 

• In SSA, 2 in 5 children die before they reach the 

age of 5 and mostly from water related diseases. 

• Unsafe water and lack of basic sanitation causes 

80% of all disease related deaths. 

• The irony is women and children walk more 

than 3 hours every day to collect unhealthy water 


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African Water and Sanitation Issues in the 

International Agenda: Not really a Question of 

Goodwill… 

• The Kananaski Action Plan (2002) 

• G8 Avian Action Plan on Water for Africa (2003) 

• G8-UK Initiative on water (2006) 

• The German-G8 Initiative: Promoting Cooperative 

and Sustainable Management of Shared Water 

Resources in Africa (2007) 

• Water for Africa Cities (WAC) Programme 

“We are committed to playing an active role…. 

particularly taking into account the importance of 

proper water management in Africa” to support 

sustainable development 


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African-led ld Initiatives 

• African Ministers’ Council on Water 

(AMCOW) 

• African Water Week (AWW) 

• African Water Facility (AWF) 

• Water and Sanitation Department (WSD) 

• The e-Thekwini Declaration on Sanitation 

Are leading institutions that provide 

frameworks for addressing the water 

security challenges of Africa. But has anything 

change so far? 


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Water Supply Coverage 1990-2000 

Source: Internet data 

Albert Djemetio Water Seminar, UNU-IAS, March 10, 200916

Sanitation Coverage 1990-2000 

Source: Internet data 


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Comments 

• In terms of numbers, over135 million people gained 

access to better water supplies in the decade 1990- 

2000, 64% in urban areas and about 33% in rural areas. 

• According to the conclusions of a 2005 panel discussion 

of UNCCD, over 325 million of people are threatened 

by desertification. Added to this are extreme poverty, 

severe land degradation, climate change and variability 

Conclusion: Some 400 million of people will need to be 

provided with clean water and access to improved 

sanitation facilities over the next 25 years, i.e. at least 

three times the current rate 


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Latest Facts about Water and 

Sanitation in SSA 

Title: Population served and not served with improved drinking water in SSA 

Source: Joint Monitoring Programme, MDGs, 2008 (WHO- 

UNICEF) 


19

Cont… 

Title: Population served and unserved with improved sanitation in SSA 

Source: Joint Monitoring Programme, MDGs, 2008 (WHO-UNICEF) 


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Comments 

. - Data show that not 

much has been achieved 

in SSA over the past 

years despite numerous 

efforts from the 

international 

communities 

- The number of people 

in the rural and urban 

areas without access to 

clean drinking water and 

adequate sanitation 

continue to increase. 


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Yet, the Socio-Economics of Investment in Water 

and Sanitation would be enormous in SSA 

countries 

• In SSA, every dollar invested in water and sanitation provision 

would yield an economic return of at least US $10 (WHO, 2004). 

• Improved sanitation would give every household an additional 

1,000 hours a year to work, study, and rest. The amount of time 

saved equates to an estimated US $100 billion each year. (UN- 

Water, 2008). 

• Meeting the MDG water target would increase school attendance 

by 272 million school days per year and give rise to an increase of 

320 million productive days for the 15 to 59 year age group. 

• If schools are equipped with safe, private sanitation ti facilities, girls 

will be much more likely to attend and stay in school. In many SSA 

countries a 1% increase in female secondary schooling results in a 

0.3% increase in economic growth (UN-Water, 2008). 

• Improved sanitation would facilitate gender equality by making it 

easier for girls to stay in school upon reaching puberty, 


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SSA Missing the MDGs of Water 

and Sanitation?: What isn’t working? 

National responsibility: 

- A lack of institutional structures: 

Overlapping of functions due to lack 

of clear responsibilities between 

institutions that lead to divergent 

management approaches 

(agriculture, fisheries, tourism, 

conservation, and transportation) 

- Water and sanitation receive low 

priority in national budgets 

-Poor design of subsidies for water 

and sanitation services in other 

cases 

- Lack of a clearly defined local 

stakeholders participation 


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CONT…: So much smoke but where is 

exactly the fire? 

• International actors responsibility: A lot of goodwill but no 

determined actions: 

- Extensive global debate has done much on principles and 

concepts but no adequate practical approaches for 

implementing what has been formulated, articulated, and 

agreed on at various meetings and Fora in the past decade. 

- Only effective implementation of water and sanitation 

principles can solve the overarching objective of poverty 

alleviation. 

- Otherwise, the MDGs will just be another trendy buzz 

concept for Africa 

- How can the international actors be instrumental in 

implementing what has been formulated and articulated? 


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Some Relevant Questions to Consider for water 

and sanitation development in SSA 

• How far is water scarcity, use, quality and quantity likely to 

trigger societal unstability? 

• Is the shortage depriving people of their livelihood and 

forcing them to migrate? If so, how can dependency be 

reduced? 

• How far do existing institutions affect stakeholder 

management practices? 

• How far is the infrastructure developed in individual 

countries? 

• Are there demand-side management initiatives? 

• Is there any institutional framework that govern water 

resources and which include effective stakeholder’s 

participation? 


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Which Platform for Achieving the MDGs of Water and 

Sanitation in SSA?: Working Together 

- Institutional Development(1) 

- Infrastructure Development (2) 

- Effective Stakeholders Participation (3) 

- Information and Knowledge Development 

(4) 

- Finance for Water (5) 

- International Actors Effective Participation 

i i 

(6) 


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Institutional Development (1) 

• In many SSA countries, water and sanitation issues 

are handled by different institutions with no or less 

coordination 

- Define and assign clear responsibilities to state 

institutions responsible for water issues to avoid 

overlapping of functions 

- Avoid divergence of views in management 

approaches that can only lead to contradictions 

from institutions that target the same objectives 


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Developing Water Infrastructure(2) 

• Without water infrastructure development, the MDGs will 

be an empty dream. Financing water represent an investment 

in economic growth for effective poverty reduction. 

- Adopt sector-wide approaches and adequate national water 

plans to target funds 

- Effective public-private i partnership (EPPP) 

- Effective partnership of the many African-led initiatives with 

donor organizations for funding water infrastructure 

- To make this efficient, water infrastructure development 

should take into account Environmental Impact Assessments 

(EIA) and Environmental Management Plans (EMPs) 


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Address Capacity Constraints for Effective Stakeholders 

Participation in Management Approaches(3) 

• Water brings many actors together with different experience and 

expertise 

- Need of a stakeholder dialogue and effective 

participation pat in the management age e process. 

- Effective networking and partnership of water 

practitioners and professionals for know-how transfer 

and exchange of experience as outlined by the WOP of 

the UN-Habitat 

- Develop and encourage a greater involvement of the 

civil il society with emphasis on the vulnerable groups and 

disadvantaged communities 

- Taking into account existing rights and practices, which 

might be considerable assets when it comes to resulting 

water-related conflicts and disputes 


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Investing in Water Information and 

Knowledge Development (4) 

• Information and knowledge about water and 

sanitation are crucial to the development of 

water related projects 

• Key Questions: How can progress be monitored 

without reliable data? How can the decision- 

making process over water and sanitation be 

effective without quality data on the hydrological 

network 

• Urgency of a database that contains 

meteorological, hydrological, and socio-economic 

data for a longer-term water resource 

management. This can be a huge investment but 

with high socioeconomic returns 


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Financing Water in SSA for Sustainability (5): A 

Common Responsibility 

• Financing water development is a vital steps towards attaining the MDGs 

of water and sanitation 

• Signs of positive economic growth in some countries exist but finances for 

water is urgently needed to leverage the growth to attain poverty 

reduction 

1- National Level: 

- Institutionalizing a national water and sanitation governance and make it an 

integral part of national plan in order to create an enabling environment 

- Exploit the opportunities of a public-private partnership (PPP) to secure 

funds for water and sanitation projects 

- Set water and sanitation sectors among priorities in the national budget 

- Exploit the many assets of the sector-wide approach where “All significant 

funding for the sector supports a single sector policy and expenditure 

programme, under government leadership…” Foster (2000) 

- Mobilizing the financial resources of African-led water institutions like the 

AMCOW, the AWF 


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CONT… 

2- International Actors: 

- Effective Implementation of the many G8 initiatives and 

commitments on water and sanitation for Africa. These include: 

The 2003 Evian Plan on Water, the German G8 Initiative 

i i 

(Transboundary water), The G8-UK Initiative, and the Kananaski 

Action Plan 

- Support stakeholders participation in dialogue processes on water 

resources management and governance 

- Help strengthen th institutional development in order to improve 

water management at national levels 

- Help in the collection and storage of water data and information 

and improve the quality of the water resources data where data 

already exist. 


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Let’s together service poverty in 

this part of the world by realizing 

what we have promised as there 

is….. 


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THANKS 


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Achieving the MDGs of Water and Sanitation in Sub ... - UNU-IAS

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