That may be an apocryphal story, but it captures the essence of the donor community’s failed efforts to provide the most basic of provisions to poor societies. Last week–when the U.N.-sponsored World Water Day was observed–there were startling reminders that despite more than $3 trillion in development expenditure over the past five decades, nearly a billion people in 50 countries live with severe water shortages every day of their lives. Germany’s Klaus Toepfer, head of the U.N. Environment Program, told NEWSWEEK last week that women and girls in developing countries spend more than 10 million person-years in the aggregate each year fetching water from distant, and frequently polluted, sources.
The World Bank calculates that 3.3 billion people in the 127 countries of the developing world suffer from water-related diseases, among them diarrhea, schistosomiasis, dengue fever, infection by intestinal worms, malaria, river blindness (onchocerciasis) and trachoma (which alone causes almost 6 million cases of blindness annually). And the deaths from water-related diseases? Almost 6 million each year. Here are more statistics–compiled by the United Nations University in Tokyo–about the gathering global water crisis:
Unfortunately, such statistics don’t seem to be persuasive enough for world leaders to act expeditiously, or meaningfully, on water-management issues. “Everyone lives downstream,” was last week’s catchy slogan marking World Water Day, but few in the tightly knit world of development aid actually do much about the state of the stream itself in poor nations
The glaring lack of attention to water issues seems especially puzzling in light of the fact that the estimated cost to provide safe water in rural areas is $50 per person per year and about $100 per person in cities, according to U.N. estimates. In a report released last week, the United Nations estimates the overall price to bring low-cost safe water and sanitation to all those who need it at around $25 billion annually over the next decade. Current world investment in water-related development projects is $8 billion per year, or a shortfall of $17 billion–an amount roughly equal to annual pet food purchases in Europe and the United States, notes Toepfer.
The hapless Swedish developmentalist who neglected to ascertain whether there was indeed water available in his African village may not have been entirely naive. Developing countries do indeed need low-cost technologies such as hand pumps, gravity-fed rainwater collection systems. But these devices can hardly work effectively unless aid agencies coordinate their efforts better (the Swede had neglected to consult local hydrologists). Sophisticated indoor plumbing may not be practical for existing hovels in poverty-stricken neighborhoods; resources could be more effectively channeled into building new homes for growing populations. That is why, as development mandarins fashion their strategies for the new millennium, water-management issues must be considered in tandem with housing, health and social development.
As much of the developing world becomes urbanized, its water crisis will deepen. Large cities already bursting at the seams–Mexico City, Lagos, Dhaka and Cairo–rely largely on ground water, but aquifers take decades to recharge while the population growth in such cities is exponential. By next year, 20 cities in the developing world will have populations exceeding 10 million. And as urban demands for water increase, supply for the developing world’s already water-starved agricultural areas will be further affected, thereby creating a potentially monumental food-security crisis.
All of this suggests that in an increasingly globalized world, a more coherent strategy for economic and social development is urgently needed. Hydrologists say that the world’s water supply is finite–less than a million cubic kilometers that, according to the United Nations, is not sufficient for today’s global population, which is growing at the unsustainable rate of 100 million people annually. UNEP’s Toepfer wasn’t engaging in hyperbole last week when he told NEWSWEEK: “My fear is that we’re headed for a period of water wars between nations. Can we afford that in a world of globalization and tribalization where conflicts over natural resources and the numbers of environmental refugees are already growing?” Chilling words, scary scenario, terrifying prospect.
