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Access

The Millennium Development Goals sets targets of halving, by 2015, the proportion of the global population without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation. Progress towards the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) is monitored by the United Nations' World Health Organization (WHO) and UNICEF Joint Monitoring Program (JMP). The following MDG indicators are used by the JMP to measure progress: 1) The proportion of population using an improved drinking-water source; and 2) the proportion of population using an improved sanitation facility.

Progress towards MDG's

The JMP publishes a biennial progress report and the latest update for 2012 provides both good news and significant remaining challenges, especially for the the sanitation sector. Between 1990 and 2010, over two billion people gained access to improved drinking-water sources making this target one of the first MDG targets to be met. Furthermore, over the same 20-year period, 1.8 billion people gained access to improved sanitation. While these are great achievements, much of the gain is explained by rapid population growth. Approximately 780 million people still lack safe drinking water, and the MDG sanitation target is unlikely to be met where in 2010 approximately 2.5 billion people still lacked access to improved sanitation.

Trends

The current trends indicate a slowing rate of improvement. Key areas of focus are sanitation and further reductions in urban-rural disparities and inequities associated with poverty. The JMP also indicates that global figures cover up these massive disparities between regions, countries, within countries, between urban-rural settings and between socioeconomic levels. As the 2015 target approaches, indicators and monitoring methodology are being refined. Additionally, monitoring of the safety, reliability and sustainability of both water supply sources and sanitation facilities are being instituted. The JMP has also begun the process to develop new water, sanitation and hygiene targets and indicators beyond 2015.

Urban-Rural Disparities for Water

It is estimated by the JMP that in 2010, 96% of the global urban population had access to an improved water supply while only 81% of rural populations had access to an improved supply. This disparity in ration equates to approximately 653 million rural inhabitants without improved sources of water. The disparity is even a wider margin when discussing piped water connections where 80% of the world's urban populations had piped water in 2010 while only 29% of rural populations did. The rate of increase has been higher in rural areas but overall coverage still remains low. Massive [[[urbanization]]] (and decrease in rural populations) has been one of the reasons for better coverage ratios but this has also led to an increase in use of unimproved urban sources. Between 1990 and 2010 21 million more people in urban settings used unimproved sources for water where in rural areas, that number dropped from 1.1 billion to 653 million.

Urban-Rural Disparities for Sanitation

The disparity of sanitation services is even wider than for water. About 80% of the global population use some form of improved sanitation compared to only 47% of rural populations worldwide. Approximately 1.8 billion of rural inhabitants (72% of total globally) still lack access to improved sanitation; however progress has been made since 1990. Nearly 724 million of those living in rural locations have gained access to sanitation while in the same timeframe, the number of those unserved by sanitation and living in urban locations has in fact grown to 183 million. This is due in great part to very high urbanization rates since 1990. Open defecation is a practice mostly associated with rural inhabitants; however, rural defecation has decreased at a higher rate than that of urban defecation rates.

Economic Impacts

The Sanitation and Water for All Partnership (SWA) is a partnership of governments, donors, civil society and multilateral organizations. The goal of this multilateral collaborative is to ensure that all people have access to basic sanitation and safe drinking water. While progress has been made, steep challenges remain and so do the economic costs of poor sanitation and lack of clean drinking water. SWA reports that Poor sanitation costs developing countries between 2 and 6% of GDP each year. Furthermore, studies show that every dollar invested in improved sanitation yields a return on investment of $9.00.

Impacts in Africa

The Water and Sanitation Program (WSP) of the World Bank has released new analysis that puts the economic loss due to inadequate sanitation in Africa between 1% and 2.5% of GDP or about US$5.5 billion per year. Approximately 554 million people in Africa (>50% of African population) are adversely affected. Investment on global scale runs about 0.1% of GDP; however, only 5 of the 18 African countries surveyed by WSP invest more than 0.1% of GDP. African nations have committed to increase spending in the sanitation sector but all have failed to reach the spending target of 0.5% of GDP. WSP warns that the true economic cost may be even higher than reported as they point out their calculations only account for economic losses caused by premature deaths, healthcare costs, losses in productivity, and time lost through the practice of open defecation. There are many other factors adding to the economic losses such as costs of epidemic outbreaks; losses in trade and tourism revenue; impact of unsafe disposing of raw sewage on water resources; and the long-term effects of poor sanitation on early childhood development. These factors are challenging and cost intensive to study so they are not included.

Impacts in Latin America

ADD info on LAC: Water and Sanitation Initiative: http://www.iadb.org/en/topics/water-sanitation/water-and-sanitation-initiative,1486.html

Water and Sanitation as a human right

Water and sanitation are officially recognized as human rights as they are directly related to living a healthy life that may better enable people to have improved chances for dignity, empowerment and prosperity. The United Nations General Assembly passed Resolution 64/292, initiated by Bolivia, in July 2010 and states that clean drinking water and sanitation are fundamental to all human rights. During that same year a United Nations Human Rights Council resolution was reached by consensus and confirmed the right to water and sanitation exists in international law and are settled matters. Resolution 64/292 also requests that nations and organizations provide funding for projects, increase capacity development efforts, share technology and any advances that might assist other countries in realizing the goals of safe drinking water and sanitation for all. The UN Human Rights Council appointed an independent expert who then recommended that water and sanitation be recognized as not only a human right but also as an individual right.

Human Rights Framework

The UN rights framework encompasses both a rights based approach that promotes greater participation in decision-making; and the legal right to water approach which promotes justifiable approaches that encourage accountability. The benefits provided by the UN rights framework include: improved accountability, better participation and access to information, higher priority to people without basic access, elimination of discriminatory policies, greater attention paid to vulnerable populations, and more affordable services.

Climate change and service providers

In a 2010 report, the World Bank signals that climate change will indeed provide a significant challenge for many water utilities. The base of water stores will be affected by rising temperatures and reduced runoff from decreasing rainfall totals. This in turn reduces supply in groundwater reservoirs and reduced flow of surface water. Sea level rises will flood inland regions and could block natural drainage paths as well.

Climate change models mostly agree that surface water runoff totals will decrease between 10% and 30% in the Mediterranean, southern Africa, the western USA, and northern Mexico. Where snowfall is important to replenish surface water each year, these areas may face formidable challenges as more snow and ice melts too fast or does not fall in sufficient amounts. Those utilities with the fewest resources and contingency planning in place will suffer the most.

Sanitation... Use WHO's Guidance paper

Institutional responsibility

Financial aspects

Tariffs

Tariffs for water and sanitation are funds contributed to water and sanitation utilities for the ability to obtain their services. Users make payments to service providers for access and service. Also considered tariffs are the labor, money and materials required to construct a self-provided water source or sanitation facility such as a well or latrine. Tariffs are rendered in order to recover costs for providing services but collection of this information can be difficult to accurately obtain due to the decentralized and non-regulatory nature of tariff collection. Informal tariff mechanisms also exist such as investments made by households for localized service and informal service providers; however, this information is not tracked and only isolated studies uncover information regarding informal tariffs. One such study was carried out by the World Bank's Africa infrastructure country diagnostic for Sub-Saharan countries. The World Bank concluded that households were the largest financiers of water and sanitation services in this region and that those capital investments can be substantial and even larger than official tariffs.

Water tariffs are rising globally and between June 2009 and June 2010 rates increased by an average of 8.5% indicating a growing trend to invest in the water and sanitation sector. The Global Water Intelligence 2010 water tariff survey from 276 cities reported an average combined water and wastewater tariff of $1.81 p/m3. The most significant increase was in Mexico and Eastern Europe where big investments have been made and the users are paying for it. Tariff increases in the United States have outpaced inflation; however, rates there are still lower than that of their Europeans counterparts.

An example of how tariffs are calculated comes out of the 2011 International Benchmarking Network (IBNET) for Water and Sanitation Utilities database. IBNET, in partnership with the World Bank and the Water and Sanitation Program (WSP), reports that the price charged to domestic users per m3 for the first 15m3 delivered through a pipe with 20mm diameter follows: Tariff per m3 = (connection fee + volumetric charge per 15 m3 per month + taxes and other fees) / 15.

Cost recovery

The true cost of maintaining water and sanitation service has generally been covered by donor agencies and governments and the economic sustainability of service has been of low priority. This is most due to the fact that water and sanitation are provided as a social good. Providing water and sanitation; however, is capital intensive on both infrastructure as well as operation and maintenance, expansions, and rehabilitation. How the expenses should be dealt with is a long standing debate and in the 1980's, two opposing beliefs dominated. One side led by WSS specialists at UNICEF and the World Health Organization (WHO) maintained that health and social benefits should carry the day and therefore, public funds were justified in order to provide water and sanitation to those that have it. The opposing side, led primarily by World Bank economists advocated for delivery of services to those that were both willing and able to pay for it and to do otherwise would lead to failure. Since these early debates, compromises have been made by both parties concerning community management, stakeholder partnerships and participatory planning. The debate on costs that should be included in cost recovery systems continues however. Today, the World Bank strategy places cost recovery at the core of reform efforts. The Bank's strategy calls for "pragmatic, but principled" interventions, and goes on to recommend "developing a realistic, sequenced approach to cost recovery".

Affordability

www.unesco.org/new/fileadmin/.../wwap_J5_Water_charges.pdf

Investment

Investment in water supply yields an average economic return of $4.4 to $1.

Investment in sanitation yields an average economic return of $9.1 to $1.

Also use GLAAS report here

Financing

Also use GLAAS report here

Strategy to improve services

The Millennium Development Goals (MDG) aim at halving, by 2015, the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and adequate sanitation, from a base year of 1990. According to a 2006 World Bank brief, this is achievable for some countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, while it represents a mammoth task for others. According to the World Bank even those countries on track to achieve the MDG targets face tremendous challenges in improving service quality, in particular to attain continuity of supply and to increase wastewater treatment. To meet these challenges Latin American and Caribbean countries, according to the World Bank, would have to advance on several fronts, including:

Sources & External Links

• WHO: Global Analysis and Assessment of Sanitation and Drinking Water (GLAAS)- The challenge of extending and sustaining services. WHO 2012 report

• WHO/UNICEF: Joint Monitoring Program (JMP) for Water and Sanitation at JMP

• UN Water statistics portal. UN Water

• Sanitation and Water for All (SWA)

• The World Bank's Water and Sanitation Program. (WSP)

• United States Agency for International Development. USAID Water & Sanitation

• United States Agency for International Development. USAID Sanitation Working Group

• The International Benchmarking Network for Water and Sanitation Utilities (IBNET)

• The Environmental Cooperation in Partnership with USAID – Asia Water and Sanitation Program (USAID / ECO-Asia)

• The Central American water and sanitation network RRASCA

• The African Civil Society Network on Water and Sanitation (ANEW)

• The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) on water and sanitation

See also

• Micro credit for water supply and sanitation
• Water privatization
• Water tariff
• Water supply and sanitation in Latin America
• Water supply and sanitation in Sub-Saharan Africa
• Improved water source