WaterAid America
Lisa Schechtman, head of policy and advocacy at WaterAid in America, celebrates the Water for the World Act and its bipartisan commitment to saving lives.
These days, it seems Americans have come to expect partisan stalemates in Washington, and foreign aid certainly hasn’t been immune. But a bipartisan group of congressmen, led by Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., and Judge Ted Poe, R-Texas, has shown that there is still commitment to US leadership on global health and development.
This month, they introduced the Water for the World Act of 2012, a companion to the Senate version (championed by Senators Durbin, D-Ill., and Corker, R-Tenn., and reminded us that meeting basic human needs and saving lives is a fundamental value of Congress.
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Last week, the WHO and UNICEF gave us what finally looked like a good news story. They released a report which showed that we are on track to meet the Millennium Development Goal on water—to halve the proportion of people without access to safe water by 2015.
But everything is not as rosy as it seems. While the global goal for water may well be met by 2015, many of the world’s poorest countries won’t have even reached this goal by 2050—unless efforts are scaled up. Sub-Saharan Africa in particular is a long way from clean water for all.
Perhaps even more worrying is that we are seriously off-track on the sanitation target—to halve the proportion of people without access to basic sanitation by 2015. Globally, 2.6 billion people are still without a safe place to go to the bathroom. The resulting diseases kill 4,000 children every day—more than AIDS, malaria and measles combined.
At current rates, the MDG goal on sanitation won’t be met in sub-Saharan Africa for another 200 years. This gives sanitation the dubious honor of being the second most off-track MDG in the region, with only maternal mortality lagging behind.
Not only that, but the water and sanitation crises are also holding back improvements across lots of other areas—including education and maternal and child health. The lack of progress in water and sanitation is not only affecting human development, but also, crucially, economic growth. Why, then, do we hardly ever hear about it? There seems to be no political currency in championing toilets. Sanitation is literally a dirty word.
To prevent other development efforts from being undermined, WaterAid is calling on world leaders to take firm action and help reverse the global water and sanitation crisis. Ministers from developed and developing countries have the chance to do just that on April 23, as the first ever high-level meeting on water and sanitation takes place in Washington, DC.
The meeting will see the creation of a new global partnership to accelerate progress on water and sanitation—a global framework for action called ‘Sanitation and Water for All,’ similar to Education for All.
With the UN MDG Review Summit then in September, there is no better time for leaders, NGOs and the campaigning public to finally tackle this dirty issue.
-Mandy Folse, Head of Policy and Advocacy, WaterAid
The pond in Jisonayili, Tamale, where a girl drowned collecting water. Photo: WaterAid / Jon Spaull
If today is a typical day, 4,000 children under five will die from diarrheal diseases caused by unsafe water and inadequate sanitation. Millions of women will spend hours collecting water from rivers, streams and other distant sources, rather than earning money or growing food. Thousands of children will miss school due to water-related illness or water collection.
The impacts that unsafe water and sanitation have on health, education and livelihoods are profound, but well documented. It’s a disturbing, but sadly familiar tale.
But whenever I visit a WaterAid program and speak with communities, I am caught by surprise hearing individual accounts about the less expected, but no less devastating, costs of unsafe water.
In Tamale in Ghana, I spoke with a community mourning the loss of a young girl who died due to an unsafe water source – not from drinking the water, but because she fell into an open pond and drowned. When families are struggling to survive, adults simply do not always have the time to supervise children collecting water.
In the Kiteto District of Tanzania, women were crushed and killed when a hand-dug well collapsed on them.
In the mountains of Nepal, a grandmother confessed the guilt she felt at leaving her baby grandson unattended every morning. She had no choice: she could not carry him up the steep rocky path from the water source, and the family needed water, so babysitting had to come second.
Mana Laxmi Shakya, from Nigalopani village in Nepal, with the grandson she has to leave alone while collecting water. Photo: WaterAid / Libby Plumb
In Ethiopia, villagers expressed their gratitude for a new water point, telling how it would save women from being sexually assaulted as they crossed a forest to reach the river where they used to collect water.
Investing in safe water supplies is essential in improving health, reducing infant mortality and boosting productivity. But it’s also a vital key in keeping families safe in other ways: freeing up time for families to spend together, and increasing the security of women.
Investing in water is not only an investment in economic growth and poverty reduction, but it is an investment in people. And that is why the U.S. Government must continue to strengthen its work to support developing country governments in their efforts to deliver the basic service of safe water to those in need.
To learn more about how WaterAid works to overcome poverty by enabling the world’s poorest people to gain access to safe water, sanitation, and hygiene education, please visit www.wateraidamerica.org.
-Libby Plumb, Senior Communications Advisor, WaterAid America
The southern African country of Zambia boasts a population of just 12 million people. But every year we bear a phenomenal loss of life due to a preventable cause – diarrhea. The annual death toll of children under five from diarrhea in my country is a staggering 14,000.
The reason: lack of political will to give priority to diarrhea and its environmental causes, such as lack of access to clean water and adequate sanitation.
Mother of 12 Christina Pede (left) from Chipongwe village in Kafue District knows the importance of clean water and adequate sanitation in preventing diarrheal diseases. In Christina’s words:
“This handpump is a great improvement on what we had before. Previously, when we used to drink water from the dam we used to get diarrhea. These health problems have stopped now.”
In Zambia, the need to prioritize diarrhea is stark: more than 80% of cases seen in clinics are diseases related to poor environmental sanitation. Yet, the report Fatal neglect: How health systems are failing to comprehensively address child mortality, released by WaterAid this week, shows that environmental health interventions that could prevent diarrheal diseases are given little priority in health budgets in Zambia from the national government and donors alike.
Along with water, sanitation and hygiene education (measures provided by WaterAid across Africa, Asia and the Pacific region), oral rehydration therapy, zinc tablets, rotavirus vaccinations and breastfeeding all help to stop child deaths from diarrhea. The global health organization PATH brings attention to the importance of all of these interventions in their new report, Diarrheal Disease: Solutions to Defeat a Global Killer. WaterAid has joined PATH and over 80 other organizations in a call to action that unites diverse organizations in demanding investment in all of these vital prevention and treatment interventions.
Until prevention and treatment of diarrhea is adequately funded, children will continue to needlessly die, despite the best efforts of their mothers, such as Stella Musanda (right) from the village of Jeremiah in Kafue District, who reports giving her toddler son Joseph the least amount of water he needs to stave off dehydration so as to minimize the chance of him contracting a fatal diarrheal disease.
-Nancy C. Bwalya-Mukumbuta, Program Manager at WaterAid in Zambia
Photos by WaterAid/Jon Spaull
Our friends at Water Advocates compiled this list of upcoming World Water Day events.
Beginning Sunday, March 16 through Saturday, March 22, restaurants will invite their customers to donate a minimum of $1 for the tap water they would normally get for free. These donations to UNICEF will go towards improving access to safe water and sanitation facilities in schools and communities, while promoting safe hygiene practices in more than 90 countries around the world. Plug in your zip code to find restaurants in your city.
World Water Day 2008 will be celebrated by the UN on Thursday, March 20. In New York you can help bring awareness to the sanitation crisis by “standing up for those that can’t sit down.”
PSI will host a World Water Day discussion about their Safe Water Programs, the successes and challenges, and the way forward on March 20 from 3:30-5:00 PM. If interested, please RSVP to akhanna@psi.org.
Celebrate World Water Day with Water For People on Friday, March 21. Raffles and speakers-including Amy Hart – Filmmaker, WATER FIRST-will make the evening one to remember.
If in Louisville, KY, join Edge Outreach on March 21, 2008 for a night of music, water and film. Join speakers and hear stories of what is being done for those without water and sanitation.
The DC Environmental Film Festival will have several water movies showing on World Water Day March 22. There is also a panel of water experts at 4:00 PM that day from Water Advocates, the Global Water Challenge, Natural Resources Defense Council and ConservationStrategy.
Join the Global Water Challenge, Water Advocates and others at the Student Movement for Real Change event on March 22: “Water is Life: Youth Leading Change on World Water Day”.
In 2007, 69 cities across the United States passed resolutions acknowledging March 22 as World Water Day. Join those interested in promoting World Water Day in a variety of events across the country.
WaterAid America in conjunction with the American Museum of Natural History present a panel discussion exploring the burden unsafe water and sanitation place on women, and the role women can play in water and sanitation development interventions. The discussion will be held on World Water Day, March 22.
Attention runners: join in an effort to raise awareness about the global water and sanitation challenge and help build a borehole well in the Azawak Valley, Niger – sign up for a Run for Water on March 22.
The Global Health Council will hold a briefing on Capitol Hill called “The Link Between Clean Water and Health.” The briefing will be on March 26 at 12:30 PM on Capitol Hill.
