Water for people.pdf - WHO Thailand Digital Repository

T H E W O R L D ’ S W A T E R C R I S I S : F I T T I N G T H E P I E C E S T O G E T H E R / 5 2 7target has already been reached, and assuming that they do not slipback, it is assessed that a further sixty-three countries with 39 percent ofthe world’s population are on track. Twenty-five countries with 32percent of the world’s population (and possibly up to 100 countries with42 percent) are not on track, with seven lagging and eighteen far behind.There are four major dimensions to achieving the water supply andsanitation targets in the years to come. First the world must keep pacewith a net population growth of more than a billion people over the nextfifteen years. Second, the existing coverage and service gap must beclosed, and significantly greater outcomes are needed in sanitationcoverage. Third, existing and new services have to be sustainable. Fourth,the quality of services needs to be improved. These are not four separatedimensions – they are all part of the same, single challenge. Table 23.3shows the practical implications of the following points.■ To meet the 2015 targets worldwide, the number of peopleserved by water supply must increase by 1.5 billion, and thoseserved by sanitation by 1.87 billion;■ For water, this means providing services for an additional 100million people each year, or 274,000 every day, until 2015.Considering that only 901 million people gained access to improvedwater services during the 1990s, the pace has to be drasticallyaccelerated;■ For sanitation, the challenge is even greater, with services to beprovided for an additional 125 million people each year until 2015,or 342,000 every day until 2015. During the 1990s, 1 billionpeople a year gained access to improved sanitation services.Rapid urban growth means that more than half of the additionalservices must be in urban areas, despite the higher current levels ofcoverage. The lower levels of service in rural areas also mean thatnearly half of the improvements will need to take place in ruralareas, even though the rural population will grow more slowly thanthe urban population.Most of the work will need to be done in Asia, as the absoluteneeds in Asia outstrip those of Africa and Latin America and theCaribbean combined: the majority of people without access to watersupply and sanitation services are in Asia.Current progress is inadequate to meet the targets. Something willhave to change dramatically if the targets are to be met. Unless thepace is increased, the number of people without access will increasesharply. To achieve the 2015 targets, some estimates show that theannual investment in water supply needs to be increased by 31percent (39 percent for the urban water sector and 19 percent for therural water sector), and achieving the total sanitation target by 2015will require that the annual expenditures of the 1990s almost double.But the magnitude of the challenge may well be even greaterthan what we have described. The above analysis is based onaccess to ‘improved’ sources of water and sanitation. Our analysisof water in cities has demonstrated that ‘improved’ sources maywell be inadequate, unsafe and inconvenient, for presentpopulations who are already served and for future populations. Themagnitude of this challenge, in the numbers concerned and theoutcomes to be achieved, could be set to rise very significantly ifnew definitions of coverage become the accepted norm.Our analysis also assumes that services for those who arealready served will be sustained. This is optimistic, as there are stillhuge constraints affecting sustainability, including fundinglimitations, insufficient cost recovery and inadequate operation andmaintenance. So, in addition to the great demand for constructingnew systems, there will also be a need for substantive investmentsin capacity-building and operation and maintenance.Millennium Goal 4: reducing child mortalityWater has a massive contribution to make in the attainment of theMillennium Declaration Goal 4, which seeks to reduce child mortality byTable 23.4: Summary of regional progress towards attaining Millennium Development Goal 4Achieved On track Lagging Far behind Slipping back No dataSub-Saharan Africa 0 7 3 24 10 0Arab States 0 11 1 4 1 0East Asia and the Pacific 0 13 1 3 1 1South Asia 0 6 1 1 0 0Latin America and the Caribbean 0 25 0 8 0 0Central and East Europe and the CIS 1 0 10 0 13 2 0Total 0 85 7 59 15 2The purpose of Millennium Development Goal 4 is to reduce under-five mortality by two-thirds. Regions include only Human Development Index countries, whereas total includes all UN membercountries excluding high-income OECD members.1 CIS: Commonwealth of Independent StatesSource: UNDP, 2002.