On World Water Day, UN calls for greater investment in providing clean water for all by UN-HABITAT & agencies 2:16am 22nd Mar, 2011   22 March 2011    UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today urged governments to recognize that the water crisis facing many urban areas is the result of weak policies and poor management rather than scarcity, noting that the problem calls for increased investment in water and sanitation services.    “Let us also pledge to reverse the alarming decline in pro-poor investment in water and sanitation,” Mr. Ban said in a message to mark World Water Day, whose theme this year is ‘Water for Cities’.    “And let us reaffirm our commitment to ending the plight of the more than 800 million people who, in a world of plenty, still do not have the safe drinking water or sanitation they need for a life in dignity and good health,” he said.    The Secretary-General pointed out that over the past decade, the number of urban dwellers who lack access to a water tap in their home or immediate vicinity has risen by an estimated 114 million, while the number of those who lack access to the most basic sanitation facilities has risen by 134 million. The 20 per cent increase has had a hugely detrimental impact on human health and on economic productivity, he said.    “In many countries, girls are forced to drop out of school owing to a lack of sanitation facilities, and women are harassed or assaulted when carrying water or visiting a public toilet.    “Moreover, the poorest and most vulnerable members of society often have little choice but to buy water from informal vendors at prices estimated to be 20 to 100 per cent higher than that of their richer neighbours, who receive piped city water in their homes. This is not just unsustainable; it is unacceptable,” the Secretary-General stressed.    The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), meanwhile, highlighted the need for new and innovative approaches to ensuring safe and adequate water for city dwellers in developing countries.    “Within the next 20 years, 60 per cent of the world’s population will live in cities, with most urban expansion taking place in the developing world. Ensuring access to nutritious, affordable food for the poorer of these city-dwellers is emerging as a real challenge,” said Alexander Mueller, FAO Assistant Director-General for Natural Resources.    He called for non-conventional alternatives for ensuring clean water is available, pointing out that rainwater harvesting in cities holds great potential for urban agriculture, but the method is relatively untapped.    One other key issue, according to FAO, is how to safely and sustainably scale up agriculture in urban and urban fringe areas and increase its contribution to meeting the needs of urban populations, while simultaneously coping with resource bottlenecks.    Shortages of irrigation water inside and around cities, along with rising interest in urban farming, has highlighted the potential for water reuse in urban environments.    “Right now, farmers and cities are competing for water. Cities are using water then putting it back out, polluting the environment. It would make so much more sense if more of the water used in the cities was then cleaned and reused in agriculture,” said Javier Mateo-Sagasta, a specialist with FAO’s Water Unit.    Doing so would reduce water scarcity and free up more of the resource for food producers in urban and urban fringe areas, who would not only spend less on acquiring water, but also on buying fertilizers, since treated wastewater is rich in nutrients, he added.    The UN independent experts on water and sanitation, extreme poverty and housing, for their part, emphasized that water and sanitation are human rights which must be guaranteed for all people without discrimination, calling for solutions to ensure that slum dwellers and residents of informal settlements have safe water and decent sanitation facilities.    “With ever increasing numbers of people living in cities today, lack of access to safe and affordable water and sanitation in urban contexts is a pressing concern,” Catarina de Albuquerque, the independent expert on water and sanitation, Magdalena Sepúlveda, the independent expert on extreme poverty, and Raquel Rolnik, the Special Rapporteur on housing, said in a joint statement.    “Time and again, we see that those without access to water and sanitation are also those who are marginalized, excluded or discriminated against. Their inadequate access to safe water and sanitation is not simply an unfortunate by-product of their poverty but rather a result of political decisions to exclude them and to de-legitimize their existence, which perpetuates their poverty.”    They also underlined the fact that poor people often pay more to access essential services such as water and sanitation. Citing UN studies, they noted that someone living in an informal settlement in Nairobi, the Kenyan capital, pays five to seven times more for a litre of water than an average North American citizen.    “With no legal connections to the formal water and sanitation network, people living in poverty often buy water of dubious quality from informal vendors, or use dirty public latrines that are not properly managed – however, without these inferior services, millions would have no access to water and sanitation at all,” they noted.    Africa’s urbanization outpaces capacity to provide water, sanitation.    The number of people without access to adequate water and sanitation facilities in Africa has risen swiftly in recent decades as the continent’s rapid urbanization outpaced its capacity to provide the essential services, two United Nations agencies said in report released today.    According to the findings of the Rapid Response Assessment undertaken by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and the UN Human Settlements Programme (UN-HABITAT) and released for World Water Day, Africa’s urban population without access to safe drinking water rose from close to 30 million in 1990 to more that 55 million in 2008.    Over the same period, the number of people without reasonable sanitation services doubled to around 175 million, according to the report. Currently, 40 per cent of Africa’s one billion people live in urban areas, 60 per cent of them in slums where water supply and sanitation are severely inadequate.    “These are the stark realities and the sobering facts which need to be addressed,” said Achim Steiner, the UNEP Executive Director. One of the themes of the conference is “green economy” in the context of sustainable development and poverty eradication.    “There is growing evidence from work on the Green Economy that a different path in terms of water and sanitation can begin to be realized. Indeed, public policies that re-direct over a tenth of a per cent of global GDP [Gross Domestic Product] per year can assist in not only addressing the sanitation challenge but conserve freshwater by reducing water demand by a fifth over the coming decades compared to projected trends,” added Mr. Steiner.    Joan Clos, the Executive Director of UN-HABITAT, said: “Africa is the fastest urbanizing continent on the planet and the demand for water and sanitation is outstripping supply in cities. “As cities expand, we must improve our urban planning and management in order to provide universal access to water and basic services while ensuring our cities become more resilient to the increasing effects of climate change,” he said.    The report, provides case studies of cities in several parts of the continent where high urbanization rates are not matched with adequate water and sanitation infrastructure.    The report calls for long-term solutions that make a connection between urbanization, water and ecosystems and recognize that urban areas in Africa will continue to grow and so will the demand for water and sanitation services.
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