Water for people.pdf - WHO Thailand Digital Repository

B A S I C N E E D S A N D T H E R I G H T T O H E A LT H / 1 2 3behaviour must be assessed. Major health gains can be achieved atthe household level through personal protection as indicated earlier.Farming communities can be informed about the water managementoptions that both benefit agricultural production and reduce healthrisks. Communities can also be mobilized to work towards improveddrinking water facilities, as well as being taught about drinking watercontamination risks at the household level and safe storage of drinkingwater from unreliable supplies. Health workers operating at the districtlevel can verify the promotion of basic sanitation and hygienebehaviour. In many instances, these local health workers will liaise withthe health sector’s environmental health programme, through sanitaryengineers or environmental health inspectors.The health sector structure is made up of a well-defined core ofhealth services delivery institutions with a more nebulous margin wheremany of the more prevention-oriented programmes reside. Theseinclude environmental health services, which tend to be characterizedby a lack of functional programme structure, poor career opportunitiesand a general lack of resources. Yet the functions of environmentalhealth services are of great health importance in relation to theregulation of environmental and social health risk factors. A number ofthese relate to water resources, water supply and water management.Strengthening of this programmatic weakness in the healthsector of most developing countries requires a number of importantpoints to be addressed, including:■ the identification and definition of essential environmentalhealth functions, combining some of the traditional functions,such as those related to drinking water supply and sanitation,with new functions, such as those related to health-impactassessment of water resources development;■ the readjustment of the balance between operational functionsand regulatory functions, to ensure that sectors responsible forwater resource development and management decisions areaccountable, within existing public health legislation, for adversehealth impacts of their actions;■ from its vantage point on the interface between the health sectorand other sectors, maintaining intersectoral coordination andcooperation between the health sector core (epidemiologicalsurveillance and health services delivery) and those responsible forwater resource development and management in other sectors.ConclusionsWe all need 20 to 50 litres of water free from harmful contaminantseach and every day. However, the number of people who do notbenefit from anywhere near this amount is staggeringly high.Deficiencies in water supply and sanitation coverage significantlyhamper economic opportunities for every one of those peopleindividually, and decrease the quality of their lives. Two criticalproblems face the sector: first, keeping pace with a net populationgrowth of more than a billion people over the next fifteen years;and second, closing the coverage and service gap, with an emphasison sanitation that lags considerably behind water supply.Despite the fact that progress has been made during the pastten years, and despite the fact that the right to water has beeninternationally recognized as a human right, one sixth of the world’spopulation is still without water, and two fifths are withoutsanitation.Even more shocking is the number of deaths, mostly ofchildren, that are largely preventable through water/hygienerelatedmeasures, as well as deaths from water-related vectorbornediseases, such as malaria and schistosomiasis, both ofwhich are rampant. They result in the loss of millions of lifeyears every year, and affect the physical, social and economicwell-being of populations. They reinforce the cycle of povertyand powerlessness that keeps people trapped and unfulfilled aswell as slowing the ability of societies to develop. What can bedone?On one level the answer is simple. Water management solutionsexist that can make significant inroads in combating both diseaseand poverty. We need only apply them. More difficult, however, isfinding the will to do so. Taking an integrated approach can help,for it then becomes clear how water and sanitation and health allfit within a broader context of promoting human development. If weare to meet our goals, we must not rest until the privileges of thefortunate have been extended to those millions still deprived ofwater, sanitation and health.■ regular economic evaluations of the hidden costs transferred tothe health sector because of water resource development thatdoes not consider health issues, and cost-effectiveness analysesof water supply and management interventions in comparisonwith conventional health sector ones.