2005 - 2006 - Pinsent Masons Water Yearbook 2012

Whither Africa?
2
PART 1: 2005-2006 OVERVIEW
“Africa can compete but … not if they are too sick to stay alive, not if the children are not in
school and not if there is no safe drinking water.
“Democracy gives a much better chance to control corruption. Not only do democracies not kill
their own people the way dictators do, but they also lay open the society allowing for more
control over government corruption.
“Yet, I am against sanctions against nations but support incentives. Sanctions hurt the very poor
… The fight against corruption has to be won internally … the real fight against corruption in
African countries has to be fought in Africa.
“I will like a middle way to ensure that the resources are being used efficiently … you can price
essential services in a way that ensures access to the poor, but doesn’t just squander resources
is a smart thing to do.”
Jeffery Sachs, Interview with the Daily Independent, Nigeria, 4th October 2005
The ending of Cascal's Dar es Salaam contract has focussed attention once again on the ability
of Sub-Saharan countries to attract investment and management support necessary to attain
the various water and sanitation objectives. This has been exacerbated by the ending of the
contracts in the Central African Republic (SODECA, held by Bouygues) and Cameroon (SNEC,
held by Suez) in part due to political instability. Other contracts such as Veolia’s in Chad and
Kenya remain in their initial stages, while political opposition towards the private sector remains
a serious issue in South Africa.
As long as Sub-Saharan Africa is on target to attain universal access to water and sanitation
services, none of this is a concern.
Progress towards the MDGs
However, Sub-Saharan Africa is the only region likely to miss the water and sanitation MDG
targets. Despite good progress in some countries (Ghana, Senegal, South Africa, and Uganda
for water and Cameroon, South Africa, and Uganda for sanitation, and within countries local
success stories, as in Burkina Faso and Senegal), by 2005 just 58% per cent of Africans lived
within a 30 minutes walk to an improved water source and 36% had access to basic sanitation.
Some comparative information is provided in Appendix 3 the yearbook, along with the Global
Monitoring Report 2005 (Millennium Development Goals: From Consensus to Momentum,
World Bank 2005).
As a result, in rural Africa, 19% of women spend more than one hour on each trip to fetch water
and unsafe water, inadequate sanitation and poor hygiene habits play a major role in Africa's
high child mortality rate. Diarrhoea is the third-biggest child killer in Africa, accounting for
701,000 child deaths out of 4.4 million on the continent every year. It also leaves millions of
children with a legacy of chronic malnutrition, the underlying cause of over half of all child
mortality. The burden of caring for sick relatives typically falls to women and girls, keeping them
at home and shutting them out of economic development.
The table below highlights the gap between current rates of improving access to these services
in Sub-Saharan Africa and the MDG targets:
Million people 2001 Current trend MDG target
to 2015 for 2015
No access to improved water 280 270 230
No access to improved sanitation 454 531 305
Source: Millennium Report, Interim Report of Task Force 7 on Water and Sanitation (2004), UNDP
Pinsent Masons Water Yearbook 2005-2006