The Macro Economy Today 14th Edition Bradley Schiller

466 INTERNATIONAL ECONOMICS
The already low levels of average education are compounded by unequal access to
schools. Families in extreme poverty typically live in rural areas, with primitive transportation
and communication facilities. Physical access to school itself is problematic. On top
of that, the poorest families often need their children to work, either within the family or in
paid employment. In Somalia, only 8 percent of poor young children attend primary
schools; in Ethiopia, Yemen, and Mali, about 50 percent attend. These forces often foreclose
school attendance for the poorest children.
Analysis: Unsafe water is a common
problem for the globally poor.
Health. In poor nations, basic health care is also a critical dimension of human capital development.
Immunizations against measles, diphtheria, and tetanus are more the exception
than the rule in Somalia, Nigeria, Afghanistan, Congo, the Central African Republic, and
many other poor nations. For all low-income nations taken together, the child immunization
rate is only 67 percent (versus 96 percent in the United States). Access and education—not
money—are the principal barriers to greater immunizations.
Water and sanitation facilities are also in short supply. The World Bank defines
“adequate water access” as a protected water source of at least 20 liters per person a day
within 1 kilometer of the home dwelling. We’re not limited to indoor plumbing with this
definition: a public water pipe a half mile from one’s home is considered adequate. Yet
only three out of four households in low-income nations meet even this minimum
threshold of water adequacy (see the World View below). In Afghanistan, Ethiopia, and
WORLD VIEW
Dying for a Drink of Clean Water
In the United States and Europe, people take it for granted that when they turn on their taps,
clean water will flow out. But for those living in U.S. cities devastated by Hurricane Katrina, as
in large parts of the world, obtaining safe water requires a constant struggle.
Water is essential to all aspects of life, yet 99 percent of water on Earth is unsafe or unavailable
to drink. About 1.2 billion people lack safe water to consume, and 2.6 billion do not have
access to adequate sanitation. There are also stark comparisons: just one flush of a toilet in
the West uses more water than most Africans have to perform an entire day’s washing, cleaning,
cooking, and drinking.
. . . Unsafe water and sanitation are now the single largest cause of illness worldwide, just as
they have been a major threat to the health of people affected by Hurricane Katrina. A recent
UN report estimated that
web click
To assess water quality in your
area, visit www.scorecard.org
and click “Clean Water Act.”
• At least 2 million people, most of them children, die annually from waterborne diseases
such as diarrhea, cholera, dysentery, typhoid, guinea worm, and hepatitis, as well as such
illnesses as malaria and West Nile virus carried by mosquitoes that breed in stagnant
water.
• Many of the 10 million child deaths that occurred last year were linked to unsafe water and
lack of sanitation. Children can’t fight off infections if their bodies are weakened by waterborne
diseases.
• Over half of the hospital beds in the developing world are occupied by people suffering from
preventable diseases caused by unsafe water and inadequate sanitation.
. . . When poor people are asked what would most improve their lives, water and sanitation are
repeatedly one of the highest priorities. We should heed their call.
—Jan Eliasson and Susan Blumenthal
Source: Editorial by Jan Eliasson and Susan Blumenthal printed in The Washington Post, Sept. 20, 2005,
p. A23. Used with permission.
ANALYSIS: Access to safe water and sanitation is one of the most basic foundations for
economic growth. The UN’s millennium water goal is to reduce by 2015 half the percentage
of people without safe water.