Yes, ensuring the safety of drinking water requires meeting strict quality criteria to prevent serious health risks. However, insisting that evaluation be conducted exclusively in the global north excludes a large percentage of those countries which have been successfully implementing these systems for decades. In-country agencies of standards in low- and middle-income countries need encouragement in order to do the evaluations. This suggests, however, that they are presented with adequate information on the various technologies. Those providing clean drinking water to low-income communities are only to be commended but those who make policy need to do a lot more. Otherwise, it appears as if the rights of the stakeholder providers are more important than the rights of the stakeholder beneficiaries. It’s important to realize that technological advances in water treatment include what is affordable, as stipulated by SDG6. Here in Western New York, USA, at and around the Ceramic College at Alfred University (Alfred.edu), we have developments of extremely effective water filter systems of packed particle beds – PPBs. From what we are seeing, no other technology of water treatment against microbes meets so squarely, the SDG6 stipulation of affordability. The original determinants of sustainability, as posed by the WHO Household Water Network in 2002 were, and presumably still are, 1. effectiveness, 2, user-friendliness, and 3. affordability. We meet these criteria squarely but are discouraged by the lack of discussion. The lack of discussion appears to be around the inability of all other approaches to meet these three criteria. In our experience, the people who make decisions and policy around drinking water fail to consider affordability. There is little or no discussion about the relative attributes of the technologies. An outcome is that those 800 million persons of daily income amounting to no more than US$1 or $2 cannot access clean drinking water. Yes, it is our job to present promising technologies. It is also the job of those who make policy and decisions to adequately seek out and evaluate the promising alternatives that meet all three criteria. Otherwise, there appears to be nothing in policy that supports the SDG6 stipulation of affordability.
Published by Anthony Reid Harvey
Yes, ensuring the safety of drinking water requires meeting strict quality criteria to prevent serious health risks. However, insisting that evaluation be conducted exclusively in the global north excludes a large percentage of those countries which have been successfully implementing these systems for decades.
In-country agencies of standards in low- and middle-income countries need encouragement in order to do the evaluations. This suggests, however, that they are presented with adequate information on the various technologies. Those providing clean drinking water to low-income communities are only to be commended but those who make policy need to do a lot more. Otherwise, it appears as if the rights of the stakeholder providers are more important than the rights of the stakeholder beneficiaries.
It’s important to realize that technological advances in water treatment include what is affordable, as stipulated by SDG6. Here in Western New York, USA, at and around the Ceramic College at Alfred University (Alfred.edu), we have developments of extremely effective water filter systems of packed particle beds – PPBs. From what we are seeing, no other technology of water treatment against microbes meets so squarely, the SDG6 stipulation of affordability.
The original determinants of sustainability, as posed by the WHO Household Water Network in 2002 were, and presumably still are, 1. effectiveness, 2, user-friendliness, and 3. affordability. We meet these criteria squarely but are discouraged by the lack of discussion. The lack of discussion appears to be around the inability of all other approaches to meet these three criteria.
In our experience, the people who make decisions and policy around drinking water fail to consider affordability. There is little or no discussion about the relative attributes of the technologies. An outcome is that those 800 million persons of daily income amounting to no more than US$1 or $2 cannot access clean drinking water. Yes, it is our job to present promising technologies. It is also the job of those who make policy and decisions to adequately seek out and evaluate the promising alternatives that meet all three criteria. Otherwise, there appears to be nothing in policy that supports the SDG6 stipulation of affordability.