Millennium Development Goals

8. Water: a Common Denominator

This Day (Lagos newspaper)
Opinion piece by Michael Akpan, March 1, 2005

The UN Millennium Development Goals, and their associated targets, are now the centre piece of the global development agenda. To combat poverty, hunger, disease, illiteracy, environmental degradation and gender inequality, water is a key. The importance of water cannot be underestimated; poverty, hunger, environmental problems and diseases could be directly combated and significantly scaled back if fought with access to water as a primary goal.

Child and maternal mortality would drop, and other important issues, including education and gender equality, would indirectly benefit from achievement of the safe drinking water and basic sanitation targets identified within the MDGs. Currently, 1.1 billion people lack access to safe drinking water, and 2.4 billion people lack access to sanitation -- "the biggest scandal of the last 50 years," according to the Water and Sanitation Collaborative Council (WSSCC). As it currently is, the situation limits development prospects in general and development in particular.

Water is critical, for example, in achieving three health-related targets: to reduce by two-third the death rate among children under five, reduce by three-quarters the rate of maternal mortality and to halt and begin to reverse HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases. Water-borne diseases are the biggest killer of young children. Access to improved quantities and quality of water and sanitation will directly reduce child death. According to WSSCC, at any time more than half the poor of the developing world are ill from causes related to hygiene, sanitation and water supply. Diarrhoeal disease alone kills six thousand children everyday. Improved nutrition and food security, for which access to water is critical, will reduce susceptibility to a wide range of diseases and will lower both the child and maternal mortality rates.

Malaria could be successfully reduced through water management that limits risk from mosquito breeding habitats. The Millennium Development Goals aim also to improve the lives of slum dwellers, for whom improved water management and sanitation services are critical. The urban poor suffer from poor quality, unreliable and overpriced services, and long queues if and when water is available ... In fact, in most developing countries only about 1-2 per cent of government spending goes to low cost water and sanitation...

...Achievements in water also help further the goals that help create gender equality and achieve universal primary education. Poor women and girls in rural and urban areas are almost always the family or village water gatherers, but water sources are frequently many hours' walk. With better water services, girls can use their time, for instance, for schooling. This time management would allow women to access primary education, helping to achieve the primary education goal while empowering women through education, thus accomplishing the goal of gender equality. Studies, too, have shown that there is a direct relation to villages with access to water and their ability to attract teachers and other professionals ...

...Water links all activities involved in trying to achieve the MDGs, and using water as an example can also highlight potentially conflicting targets that therefore must be managed. Hunger and poverty alleviation will imply increased food production and strengthened economic development. These side effects of that may hinder the achievement of the target for safe drinking water (in particular), through increased pollution, and the MDG on environmental sustainability (in general), through river depletion and pollution...

...The last of the MDGs is to "develop a global partnership for development" as one important vehicle for the achievement of the other seven goals and the targets. Partnership thus in the water sector would play a critical role in achieving the health, poverty and environment-related MDGs, as well as education and gender equality. With water, the development of local agricultural sustainability (where possible) would help combat hunger and poverty and develop local markets; sanitation would be delivered to combat against water borne disease and mortality rates. Watershed protection would contribute to environmental sustainability for this precious resource.

Mr. M. Akpan, president, Pan African Vision for the Environment
http://allafrica.com/stories/printable/200503020133.html

Back to top