Status report on water and sanitation by the United Nations

On their 13^th meeting in 2005 the CSD (Commission on Sustainable Development), which was set in by the United Nations, constituted 72 policy actions. They were targeting the areas of water supply, integrated water-resource management and basic sanitation.

 

In 2008 the DESA (Department of Economic and Social Affairs), which is also part of the UN and in a superior position to the CDS, wanted to control the progress 35 countries had made in implementing the policy actions. The independent organisation of SIWI (Stockholm International Water Institute) was hired to check the progress.

 

The 35 countries were chosen in a way that a big variety of geographic, human and development policy aspects could be involved. This article will only describe some of these countries.

 

The examination of these 35 countries took place by using different indices; three of them were especially important:

The global examination of all 35 chosen countries shows that the implementation is most advanced in the fields of water supply and integrated water-resource management. The field of sanitation has fallen behind a lot. If you split the area “sanitation” up into its three components (basic sanitation, hygiene, wastewater), you can see that the wastewater treatment is extremely underdeveloped. This is very tragic, because there are proven solutions for the treatment of wastewater: the sanitation solution connected with DEWATS that were spread by BORDA in the last 10 years is contributing positively on this field. The distribution of clean toilets has also not reached the needed level yet. BORDA is able to offer decentralised, affordable, economically friendly and proven solutions also here.

 

Comparing the countries it becomes obvious that there are certain correlations between the indices. A strong correlation can be found between the HDI and the WSS Access: the higher the HDI, the better is the access for the population to water and sanitation. But you can also see that the access to drinking water has proceeded much further than the access to basic sanitation. In only four out of the 35 countries that have been checked the index for access to sanitation is higher than the access to water supply. These countries were Kyrgyzstan, Samoa, Sri Lanka and Trinidad.

 

Interestingly there is no correlation between the HDI and the CSD 13 Policy Index. So the efforts on implementing the policy actions are not determined by the stage of its development. There are countries that have a low HDI, which have made great efforts to improve their basic sanitation.

 

A good example is Zambia: The HDI is very low, the WSS access as well. But Zambia is rated on the fourth place on implementing the policy actions. Since 2007 BORDA works in cooperation with WAZASA (Water and Sanitation Association of Zambia) to spread decentralised basic sanitation connected with DEWATS.

 

Tanzania, another country with BORDA activities, has also a very low HDI and a WSS Access, which is even lower than the one of Zambia. The problem here is that the implementations of the policy actions is not enforced by the Tanzanian Government, so there are only little improvements.

 

The Asian countries are rating in general higher than the African countries. Exemplary there are shown now the results of the Asian countries, where BORDA and its partner organisations are working on projects.

 

On the Philippines the access to water supply is very good; the access to sanitation is rating a bit lower. The HDI is also quite high, but the Philippines are rating only average on the implementation of the policy actions. This might be caused by satisfaction, because the WSS access is already quite good. It is important to convince the government that perfecting the WSS access is important.

 

In Lao the situation is much more serious, because neither the access to water nor the access to sanitation is on a sufficient level. The implementation index is also much to low. So in Lao is still a lot of work to do; work that can be done by BORDA with their combined DEWATS/CBS approach.

 

Vietnam has a good access to drinking water, but the access to sanitation needs to catch up with this. And this catch up will probably not be done soon, because the efforts the country makes are low (even lower than the efforts of neighbouring country Lao). The aim for BORDA could be to show the government officials the performance of DEWATS CBS and to persuade them that the catch up can be achieved easy.

 

A country where BORDA projects might take place in the future is Pakistan. And the premises are looking very good: Pakistan was rated the highest CSD 13 policy index of all 35 checked countries. Pakistan is trying very hard to eliminate the grievances in their water and sanitation system. The water supply in Pakistan has already reached a high level, but the access to sanitation lags far behind this good score. Also here meet the strengths of BORDA the opportunities in Pakistan. The DEWATS / CBS solutions should be able to help solving the problems in this field, especially the problems that can be solved with decentralised solutions.

 

So the overall picture shows that there are several countries that have started to improve their own water situation and these countries are making good progress. Their governments have realized the problem and are working on solutions. Nevertheless there are still some countries that have not yet realized how serious their situation is. Here a lot of work needs to be done to convince the governments that water and sanitation are extremely important.

The fact that basic sanitation is in several countries still a problem and that wastewater treatment is on an utterly devastating level is the big challenge for BORDA and its partner-network.

 

Tim Cordsen, BORDA Bremen