Accelerating universal access to clean water

Within the last 10 years, Indonesia has seen consistent development of sanitation and drinking water facilities, but will it be enough to provide universal access by 2019?

Based on data from the Central Statistics Agency (BPS), Indonesia had managed to provide clean drinking water to 68.36 percent of its population and basic sanitation access to 61.04 percent of its population by 2014.

On another note, the data from the BPS also shows that from 2004 to 2014 clean drinking water access had improved by 22.93 percent, while basic sanitation access was up by 19.3 percent. This means that, on average, public access to clean drinking water and sanitation has been improving by a rate of between 1.93 percent and 2.29 percent annually in the last 10 years.

While Indonesia has shown this constant improvement, the figures are practically incompatible with the country’s ambition to provide universal or 100 percent access by 2019.

The ambition is stipulated in the government’s 2015-2019 National Mid-Term Development Plan (RPJMN).

The stipulation requires Indonesia improve its clean drinking water by 30 percent and basic sanitation access by 40 percent in the next four years. That means annually, the country must at least be able to improve its clean drinking water access by between 7 to 8 percent annually and basic sanitation access by 10 percent, a far higher average rate compared to its previous records.

So, Indonesia basically needs to massively accelerate in terms of its development programs to reach its ambition of providing universal clean drinking water and basic sanitation access by 2019.

One of the programs is called the Sanitation and Drinking Water National Conference (KSAN).

The KSAN is a bi-annual event organized by the Drinking Water and Environment Restoration (AMPL) network, which is a working group of stakeholders in water and sanitation matters, including representatives from the government, tap water operators and some non-governmental organizations established in 2007.

This year’s KSAN, held last month at the Haji Usmar Ismail Film Center in Jakarta, still carried the same agenda of developing collaboration among stakeholders so that they could formulate acceleration programs and raise public awareness about the importance of universal access to clean drinking water and sanitation.

While the agenda was still the same as that of the previous years, there was something different and unique in the way the conference conveyed its message this year. It was not a boring conference like other conferences on public issues; instead it was delivered with an entertaining and engaging narrative and style. 

Source: The Jakarta Post

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• Public Health
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• Sanitation & Hygiene