Securing Water and Sanitation for the Future - Guardian reports from WWW

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Securing Water and Sanitation for the Future - Guardian reports from WWW

Can access to water and sanitation be secured now for future generations? We don’t have a choice, we have to turn to sustainablility -a panel discussion hosted by the Guardian at World Water Week.

niQAa3h.jpgThis was the central message of a panel discussion hosted by the Guardian at the annual World Water Week conference in Stockholm, Sweden.

The panel was organised in association with the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI) and supported by Fundación Femsa, which works to create programmes around conservation and the sustainable use of water.

The sustainable development goals (SDGs) – an ambitious agenda for social, environmental and economic change – were adopted by world leaders at the United Nations general assembly in September 2015.

he agenda sets a target of “ensuring the availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all” by 2030.

Around the world, 650 million people lack access to safe water and 2.3 billion people live without adequate sanitation. Without action, these numbers will grow as the global population increases. Another 1.5 billion people will live on this planet by 2030, according to the UN.

The question, therefore, of providing water and sanitation services sustainably is non-negotiable. The real challenge, the panel agreed, is how to deliver them more efficiently.

“We have to do things better and faster,” said Alejandro Jiménez, water, sanitation and hygiene (Wash) specialist at SIWI. “Faster, because we will not achieve access for all at this rate of implementation. And better, because at present we cannot keep services functional once they are constructed.”

Sergio Campos, chief of the water and sanitation division at the Inter-American Development Bank, agreed. In Latin America and the Caribbean, he said, the challenge is not reaching the 30 million people who lack access to safe water and the 100 million people who don’t have adequate sanitation, but ensuring a sustainable and continuous service.

“Around 90% of people in our region live in urban areas and we haven’t been able to cope with population growth and rapid urbanisation,” he said. “Maintenance of the existing infrastructure has been systematically deferred and 35 to 60% of potable water is lost through leakages.”

Investing in the social, as well as the physical, infrastructure is one way of securing water and sanitation over the long term, said Mariano Montero, director of Fundación Femsa. “By social infrastructure we mean empowering people to own the project,” he explained. “We can’t just give a community a solution that we think is best. They have to participate and invest in that solution. Even if they don’t have money, they can invest by putting labour into the process.”

New ways of thinking

Innovation will be key to the sustainable development of water and sanitation access, said Jayanthi Iyengar, senior vice-president and chief innovation and technology officer at Xylem, an American water technology provider. “I don’t think we need to invent new technologies … but we do need innovation around how to accelerate their deployment.” Iyengar added that technology would be particularly useful in detecting water losses and recycling water, but that consumers needed to be educated in innovative ways.

“One of our surveys in California shows that where people understand what’s involved in water recycling, they are much more willing to accept it. We went from a 42% to 89% acceptance rate, as soon as people had information on the treatment processes,” said Iyengar. The same survey also found that more people are supportive of the term “purified water” than “recycled” or “reclaimed water”.

But any programme of change needs funding. The millennium development goal (MDG) on water sought to halve the proportion of the population without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation between 2000 and 2015.

Annual expenditure to meet this goal was $35bn (£26.5bn). By contrast, $115bn (£87bn) will be needed per year to meet the SDG – sustainable and equitable access for all.

Where will this money come from? “The starting point is a complete change in mindset,” said Bill Kingdom, global lead for water supply and sanitation at the World Bank’s Water Global Practice. “Many of our clients are dependent on money coming from above. They spend it and then they stop [programmes] because there’s no more money.”

Instead, said Kingdom, budget holders must find ways to allocate money more efficiently

Read full article and see the list of panelists at: The Guardian

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