Action on Water World leaders have pledged to achieve by 2015 the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), including the over-arching goal of cutting extreme poverty in half. UNDP, using its worldwide network, is coordinating global and national efforts to reach these Goals. As the 2006 Human Development Report (HDR 2006), Beyond scarcity: Power, poverty and the global water crisis, emphasizes, achieving the eight MDGs very much depends on strengthening water governance at local, national, regional and global levels. The main imperatives of the Report are: Make water a human right—and mean it Draw up national strategies for water and sanitation Support national plans with international aid Develop a global action plan UNDP is helping catalyze efforts toward achievement of the MDGs through its Water Governance Programme (www.undp.org/water/ ), and stands ready to work with UN-Water and other partners in advancing the Report’s recommendations. UNDP’s strategy in strengthening water governance—and thereby boosting progress toward the MDGs—includes: Incorporating water management, water supply and sanitation into national development and poverty- reduction strategies Catalyzing financing for improved water governance Supporting and participating in global, regional, national and local dialogue on water governance. Helping countries consider water resources in their plans for adapting to climate change Building capacity to manage water resources effectively Promoting women’s empowerment and human rights as essential components of effective water governance UNDP’s Water Governance Programme is structured around six inter-related areas of support: 1. National strategies for equitable management and governance of water (Links to HDR2006 Chapters 1, 2, 3 and 4) This area aims to help partner countries fight poverty and achieve sustainable development through global MATTERS OF FACT • UNDP’s Water Governance Programme is active in over 150 countries, in four thematic areas of support: Water Supply, Sanitation, Transboundary Waters Manage- ment, and Water Resources Management. In the graph on page 2 water supply and sanitation are represented as one section. • The Water Governance portfolio totals $1.5 billion including cash and in-kind co-financing. • The International Waters focal area of the Global Environment Facility (GEF) represents the principal source of funding for the Transboundary Waters Management area. • UNDP participates in UN-Water, Global Water Partnership, Water and Sanitation Programme, World Water Assessment Programme, World Water Forum. • Partners include governments, bilateral and multilateral donors, UN agencies, NGOs and private foundations • UNDP has set up 11 national and 9 regional water management capacity-building networks, including 300 member institutions • UNDP draws on expertise from its Environment & Energy network of 1,413 members “ I fully support the call for a Global Action Plan to tackle the growing water and sanitation crisis. As the 2006 Human Development Report highlights, each one of the eight Millennium Development Goals is inextric- ably tied to the next, so if we fail on the water and sanitation goal, hope of reaching the other seven rapidly fades. Either we take concerted action now to bring clean water and sanitation to the world’s poor, or we consign millions of people to lives of avoidable poverty, poor health and diminished opportunities, and perpetuate deep inequalities within and between countries. We have a collective responsibility to succeed. — Kemal Derviş, UNDP Administrator
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Action on Water
World leaders have pledged to achieve by 2015 the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), including the over-arching goal of cutting extreme poverty in half. UNDP, using its worldwide network, is coordinating global and national efforts to reach these Goals. As the 2006 Human Development Report (HDR 2006), Beyond scarcity: Power, poverty and the global water crisis, emphasizes, achieving the eight MDGs very much depends on strengthening water governance at local, national, regional and global levels. The main imperatives of the Report are:
Make water a human right—and mean it Draw up national strategies for water and sanitation Support national plans with international aid Develop a global action plan
UNDP is helping catalyze efforts toward achievement of
the MDGs through its Water Governance Programme
(www.undp.org/water/), and stands ready to work with
UN-Water and other partners in advancing the Report’s
recommendations.
UNDP’s strategy in strengthening water governance—and
thereby boosting progress toward the MDGs—includes:
Incorporating water management, water supply and
sanitation into national development and poverty-
reduction strategies
Catalyzing financing for improved water governance
Supporting and participating in global, regional,
national and local dialogue on water governance.
Helping countries consider water resources in their
plans for adapting to climate change
Building capacity to manage water resources effectively
Promoting women’s empowerment and human rights
as essential components of effective water governance
UNDP’s Water Governance Programme is structured
around six inter-related areas of support:
1. National strategies for equitable management and
governance of water
(Links to HDR2006 Chapters 1, 2, 3 and 4)
This area aims to help partner countries fight poverty and
achieve sustainable development through global
MATTERS OF FACT
• UNDP’s Water Governance Programme is active in over 150 countries, in four thematic areas of support: Water Supply, Sanitation, Transboundary Waters Manage-ment, and Water Resources Management. In the graph on page 2 water supply and sanitation are represented as one section.
• The Water Governance portfolio totals $1.5 billion including cash and in-kind co-financing.
• The International Waters focal area of the Global Environment Facility (GEF) represents the principal source of funding for the Transboundary Waters Management area.
• UNDP participates in UN-Water, Global Water Partnership, Water and Sanitation Programme, World Water Assessment Programme, World Water Forum.
• Partners include governments, bilateral and multilateral donors, UN agencies, NGOs and private foundations
• UNDP has set up 11 national and 9 regional water management capacity-building networks, including 300 member institutions
• UNDP draws on expertise from its Environment & Energy network of 1,413 members
“ I fully support the call for a Global Action Plan to tackle the growing water and sanitation crisis. As the 2006 Human Development Report highlights, each one of the eight Millennium Development Goals is inextric-ably tied to the next, so if we fail on the water and sanitation goal, hope of reaching the other seven rapidly fades. Either we take concerted action now to bring clean water and sanitation to the world’s poor, or we consign millions of people to lives of avoidable poverty, poor health and diminished opportunities, and perpetuate deep inequalities within and between countries. We have a collective responsibility to succeed.
— Kemal Derviş, UNDP Administrator
advocacy, policy development and coordination of action,
and by bringing water-resources management, water
supply and sanitation into national development plans.
Programme results include:
Assisted Kazakhstan in developing its national
Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) plan;
similar plans are under development in more than 50 other
countries, including all Small Island Developing States, in
support of global targets for sustainable development.
Supported Chad, China, Kenya, Sudan, Ukraine and
others in conceiving national plans, tariff structures,
legislation and regulatory systems for water and sanitation.
Served as lead author of water-governance chapter in
World Water Development Report produced by UN Water.
With the Poverty and Environment Partnership, UNDP
has helped development partners craft policy that
recognizes the links between poverty and water issues,
maximizes the value of investments and gives top priority
to the most pressing concerns.
2. Local action on water and sanitation
(Links to HDR 2006 Chapters 1, 2, 3 and 5)
This area focuses on promoting decentralized water
management that is responsive to local conditions and the
needs of poor and marginalized groups. UNDP helps
communities take an active role in IWRM, and promotes
safe and ecosystem-based water supply and sanitation
systems and technologies. Results include:
Support to community-level projects on water-
resources management, water supply and sanitation in
over 30 countries. In Rajasthan, India, for example, that
support aided construction of 7,500 community water-
harvesting structures in the form of dams and ponds to rid
the area of water shortages.
In India and Sri Lanka, the success of pilot projects in
ecologically friendly sanitation has elicited demand from
municipal and state governments to scale up sanitation
services. Ecological sanitation investments are backing the
ongoing restoration of Havana Bay, Cuba and Lake
Manzala, Egypt.
A broad-based programme to implement ‘eco-friendly’
municipal sanitation in Mexico has helped local organiza-
tions design and manufacture ‘ecosan’ toilets, and demon-
strated successful household and public ‘ecosan’ systems.
3. Cooperation on Transboundary Waters Management
(Links to HDR 2006 Chapter 6)
This area focuses on strengthening the joint management
of transboundary waterbodies—rivers, lakes and aquifers
that cross national borders—by setting priorities, building
consensus on governance reforms and investments,
nurturing and strengthening institutions, and supporting
the implementation of action programmes. UNDP’s
results here include:
The Programme supports transboundary waters-
management programmes in 15 lake and river basins with
over 100 countries participating.
UNDP and its partners completed Transboundary
Diagnostic Analyses, in 12 shared waterbodies which set
priorities in managing transboundary waters and assessed
both causes and impacts of agreed priority transboundary
issues.
Governments completed and adopted 12 UNDP-
supported Strategic Action Programmes to address agreed
threats to their shared waterbodies. Implementation of
these is underway in six waterbodies.
Catalytic investments and policy reforms significantly
cut pollution loads in the Danube, and the Black Sea
ecosystem is recovering.
Adoption of five regional legal waterbody mechanisms.
Eight regional transboundary waters-management
institutions were created or strengthened.
4. Adaptation to climate change
(Links to HDR 2006 Chapter 4)
This area helps countries assess their vulnerability to
climate change and incorporate those risks into national
development planning. It includes strengthening of water
institutions and prioritizing of adaptation projects. A
principal concern is to address the disproportionate
UNDP Water Portfolio by Region
15%
20%
24%
21%
13%7% Africa
AsiaArab States
Europe/CISLat in America
Global Focus
UNDP Water Portfolio by Thematic Area
22%
23%55%
Water Supply andSanitation
Water ResourcesManagement
TransboundaryWatersManagement
vulnerability of poor people to climate change. Results
include:
More than 200 individual National Communications, on
climate change and adaptation, 29 National Adaptation
Programmes of Actions; 22 pilot projects on adaptation in
43 countries.
In Zimbabwe and Mozambique, UNDP and partners
linked global climate models to river-basin hydrology to
develop climate-change adaptation strategies.
Support to community-based drought management in
over 400 villages in the Marwar region of India.
5. Gender equity in water governance
(Cross-cutting theme in HDR 2006)
UNDP supports policies, programmes and projects that
make women’s empowerment a central consideration in
water-resources management, and thus foster human
development for both women and men. Results include:
Development of Mainstreaming Gender in Water
Management: A Resource Guide, an interactive web- and
CD-ROM-based guide providing tools and resources in four
languages.
Why gender matters is a tutorial for water managers,
available in English and Spanish, that was disseminated to
all UNDP country offices and used by 300 training
institutions.
6. Capacity development
(Cross-cutting theme in HDR 2006)
The principal aim is to strengthen local institutions as
builders of capacity and centres of knowledge, and to
improve access to experience, expertise and tools for
improved water-resources management, water supply and
sanitation. UNDP supports networks of knowledge that can
maximize programmes’ impact and adapt experience and
good practices for use elsewhere. Results include:
Established a capacity-building network for water-
1 Norway 2 Iceland 3 Australia 4 Ireland 5 Sweden 6 Canada 7 Japan 8 United States 9 Switzerland 10 Netherlands 11 Finland 12 Luxembourg 13 Belgium 14 Austria 15 Denmark 16 France 17 Italy 18 United Kingdom 19 Spain 20 New Zealand 21 Germany 22 Hong Kong, China (SAR) 23 Israel 24 Greece 25 Singapore 26 Korea, Rep. of 27 Slovenia 28 Portugal 29 Cyprus 30 Czech Republic 31 Barbados 32 Malta 33 Kuwait 34 Brunei Darussalam 35 Hungary 36 Argentina 37 Poland 38 Chile 39 Bahrain 40 Estonia 41 Lithuania 42 Slovakia 43 Uruguay 44 Croatia 45 Latvia 46 Qatar 47 Seychelles 48 Costa Rica 49 United Arab Emirates 50 Cuba 51 Saint Kitts and Nevis 52 Bahamas 53 Mexico 54 Bulgaria 55 Tonga 56 Oman 57 Trinidad and Tobago 58 Panama 59 Antigua and Barbuda 60 Romania 61 Malaysia 62 Bosnia and Herzegovina 63 Mauritius
64 Libyan Arab Jamahiriya 65 Russian Federation 66 Macedonia, TFYR 67 Belarus 68 Dominica 69 Brazil 70 Colombia 71 Saint Lucia 72 Venezuela, RB 73 Albania 74 Thailand 75 Samoa (Western) 76 Saudi Arabia 77 Ukraine 78 Lebanon 79 Kazakhstan 80 Armenia 81 China 82 Peru 83 Ecuador 84 Philippines 85 Grenada 86 Jordan 87 Tunisia 88 Saint Vincent and the
• The absence of clean water and adequate sanitation is a major cause of poverty and malnutrition:
• One in five people in the developing world—1.1 billion in all—lacks access to an improved water source.
• One in two people—2.6 billion in all—lacks access to adequate sanitation.
• Diseases and productivity losses linked to water and sanitation in developing countries amount to 2% of GDP, rising to 5% in Sub-Saharan Africa—more than the region gets in aid.
• In many of the poorest countries only 25% of the poorest households have access to piped water in their homes, compared with 85% of the richest.
• The poorest households pay as much as 10 times more for water as wealthy households.
• Water is a vital productive input for the smallholder farmers who account for more than half of the world’s population living on less than $1 a day.
• Mounting pressure to reallocate water from agriculture to industry threatens to increase rural poverty.
• Bringing water and sanitation into the mainstream of national and international strategies for achieving the Millennium Development Goals requires policies aimed at:
• Making access to water a human right and legislating for the progressive implementation of that right by ensuring that all people have access to at least 20 litres of clean water a day.
• Increasing public investment in extending the water network in urban areas and expanding provision in rural areas.
• Introducing “lifeline tariffs”, cross-subsidies and invest-ments in standpipes to ensure that nobody is denied access to water because of poverty, with a target ceiling of 3% for the share of household income spent on water.
• Regulating water utilities to improve efficiency, enhance equity and ensure accountability to the poor.
• Introducing public policies that combine sustainability with equity in the development of water resources for agriculture.
• Supporting the development and adoption of pro-poor irriga-tion technologies.
Goal 2 Achieve universal primary education
• Collecting water and carrying it over long distances keep millions of girls out of school, consigning them to a future of illiteracy and restricted choice.
• Water-related diseases such as diarrhoea and parasitic infections cost 443 million school days each year— equivalent to an entire school year for all seven-year-old children in Ethiopia—and diminish learning potential.
• Inadequate water and sanitation provision in schools in many countries is a threat to child health.
• The absence of adequate sanitation and water in schools is a major reason that girls drop out.
• Parasitic infection transmitted through water and poor sani-tation retards learning potential for more than 150 million children.
• Linking targets and strategies for achieving universal primary education to strategies for ensuring that every school has adequate water and sanitation provision, with separate facili-ties for girls.
• Making sanitation and hygiene parts of the school curriculum, equipping children with the knowledge they need to reduce health risks and enabling them to become agents of change in their communities.
• Establishing public health programmes in schools and communities that prevent and treat water-related infectious diseases.
• Deprivation in water and sanitation perpetuates gender inequality and disempowers women.
• Women bear the brunt of responsibility for collecting water, often spending up to 4 hours a day walking, waiting in queues and carrying water. This is a major source of time poverty.
• The time women spend caring for children made ill by waterborne diseases diminishes their opportunity to engage in productive work.
• Inadequate sanitation is experienced by millions of women as a loss of dignity and source of insecurity.
• Women account for the bulk of food production in many countries but experience restricted rights to water.
• Putting gender equity in water and sanitation at the centre of national poverty reduction strategies.
• Enacting legislation that requires female representation on water committees and other bodies.
• Supporting sanitation campaigns that give women a greater voice in shaping public investment decisions and household spending.
• Reforming property rights and the rules governing irrigation and other water user associations to ensure that women enjoy equal rights.
Goal 4 Reduce child mortality
• Dirty water and poor sanitation account for the vast majority of the 1.8 million child deaths each year from diarrhoea—almost 5,000 every day—making it the second largest cause of child mortality.
• Access to clean water and sanitation can reduce the risk of a child dying by as much as 50%.
• Diarrhoea caused by unclean water is one of the world’s greatest killers, claiming the lives of five times as many children as HIV/AIDS.
• Clean water and sanitation are among the most powerful preventative measures for child mortality: achieving the Millennium Development Goal for water and sanitation at even the most basic level of provision would save more than 1 million lives in the next decade; universal provision would raise the number of lives saved to 2 million.
• Waterborne diseases reinforce deep and socially unjust disparities, with children in poor households facing a risk of death some three to four times greater than children in rich households.
• Treating child deaths from water and sanitation as a national emergency—and as a violation of basic human rights.
• Using international aid to strengthen basic healthcare provi-sion in preventing and treating diarrhoea.
• Establishing explicit linkages between targets for lowering child mortality and targets for expanding access to water and sanitation.
• Prioritizing the needs of the poorest households in public investment and service provision strategies for water and sanitation.
• Ensuring that Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers recognize the link between water and sanitation and child mortality.
• Publishing annual estimates of child deaths caused by water and sanitation problems.
Goal 5 Improve maternal health
• The provision of water and sanitation reduces the incidence of diseases and afflictions—such as anaemia, vitamin deficiency and trachoma—that undermine maternal health and contribute to maternal mortality.
• Treating water and sanitation provision as a key component in strategies for gender equality.
• Empowering women to shape decisions on water and sanita-tion at the household, local and national levels.
Goal 6 Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases
• Inadequate access to water and sanitation restricts op-portunities for hygiene and exposes people with HIV/AIDS to increased risks of infection.
• HIV-infected mothers require clean water to make formula milk.
• Achieving the Millennium Development Goal target for water and sanitation would reduce the costs to health systems of treating water-related infectious diseases by $1.7 billion, increasing the resources available for HIV/AIDS treatment.
• Poor sanitation and drainage contribute to malaria, which claims some 1.3 million lives a year, 90% of them children under the age of five.
• Integrating water and sanitation into national and global strategies for tackling malaria and improving living conditions of HIV/AIDS patients.
• Ensuring that households caring for people with HIV/AIDS have access to at least 50 litres of free water.
• Investing in the drainage and sanitation facilities that reduce the presence of flies and mosquitoes.
Eight reasons for the world to act on water and sanitation—links to the Millennium Development Goals (continued)
(continued on next page)
24 Human De velopmenT RepoRT 2006
Eight reasons for the world to act on water and sanitation—links to the Millennium Development Goals (continued)
Halve the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation
• The goal of halving the proportion of people without access to water and sanitation will be missed on current trends by 234 million people for water and 430 million people for sanitation.
• Sub-Saharan Africa will need to increase new connections for sanitation from 7 million a year for the past decade to 28 million a year by 2015.
• Slow progress in water and sanitation will hold back advances in other areas.
• Putting in place practical measures that translate Millennium Development Goal commitments into practical actions.
• Providing national and international political leadership to overcome the twin deficits in water and sanitation.
• Supplementing the Millennium Development Goal target with the target of halving water and sanitation coverage disparities between the richest and poorest 20%.
• Empowering independent regulators to hold service providers to account for delivering efficient and affordable services to the poor.
Reverse the loss of environmental resources
• The unsustainable exploitation of water resources repre-sents a growing threat to human development, generating an unsustainable ecological debt that will be transferred to future generations.
• The number of people living in water-stressed countries will increase from about 700 million today to more than 3 billion by 2025.
• Over 1.4 billion people currently live in river basins where the use of water exceeds minimum recharge levels, leading to the desiccation of rivers and depletion of groundwater.
• Water insecurity linked to climate change threatens to increase malnutrition by 75–125 million people by 2080, with staple food production in many Sub-Saharan African countries falling by more than 25%.
• Groundwater depletion poses a grave threat to agricultural systems, food security and livelihoods across Asia and the Middle East.
• Treating water as a precious natural resource, rather than an expendable commodity to be exploited without reference to environmental sustainability.
• Reforming national accounts to reflect the real economic losses associated with the depletion of water resources.
• Introducing integrated water resources management policies that constrain water use within the limits of environmental sustainability, factoring in the needs of the environment.
• Institutionalizing policies that create incentives for conserv-ing water and eliminating perverse subsidies that encourage unsustainable water-use patterns.
• Strengthening the provisions of the Kyoto Protocol to limit carbon emissions in line with stabilization targets of 450 parts per million, bolstering clean technology transfer mecha-nisms and bringing all countries under a stronger multilateral framework for emission reductions in 2012.
• Developing national adaptation strategies for dealing with the impact of climate change—and increasing aid for adaptation.
Goal 8 Develop a global partnership for development
• There is no effective global partnership for water and sanita-tion, and successive high-level conferences have failed to create the momentum needed to push water and sanitation in the international agenda.
• Many national governments are failing to put in place the policies and financing needed to accelerate progress.
• Water and sanitation is weakly integrated into Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers.
• Many countries with high child death rates caused by diar-rhoea are spending less than 0.5% of GDP on water and sanitation, a fraction of what they are allocating to military budgets.
• Rich countries have failed to prioritize water and sanitation in international aid partnerships, and spending on develop-ment assistance for the sector has been falling in real terms, now representing only 4% of total aid flows.
• International aid to agriculture has fallen by a third since the early 1990s, from 12% to 3.5% of total aid.
• Putting in place a global plan of action to galvanize political action, placing water and sanitation on to the agenda of the Group of Eight, mobilizing resources and supporting nationally owned planning processes.
• Developing nationally owned plans that link the Millennium Development Goal target for water and sanitation to clear medium-term financing provisions and to practical policies for overcoming inequality.
• Empowering local governments and local communities through decentralization, capacity development and adequate financing, with at least 1% of GDP allocated to water and sanitation through public spending.
• Increasing aid for water by $3.6–$4 billion annually by 2010, with an additional $2 billion allocated to Sub-Saharan Africa.
• Increasing aid for agriculture from $3 billion to $10 billion an-nually by 2010, with a strengthened focus on water security.
About UNDPThe United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is the UN’s global development network, advocating for change and connecting countries to knowledge, experience and resources to help people build a better life. We are on the ground in 166 countries, working with governments and people on their own solutions to global and national development challenges. As they develop local capacity, they draw on the people of UNDP and our wide range of partners that can bring about results.
World leaders have pledged to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015, including the overarching goal of cutting extreme poverty in half. UNDP, using its worldwide network, is coordinating global and national efforts to reach these Goals.
On the Ground in Developing CountriesOur focus is helping countries build and share solutions to the challenges of:
• Democratic Governance: More countries than ever before are working to build democratic governance. Their challenge is to develop institutions and processes that are more responsive to the needs of ordinary citizens, including the poor, and that promote development. UNDP helps countries strengthen electoral and legislative systems, improve access to justice and public administration, and develop a greater capacity to deliver basic services to those most in need. Through its programmes, UNDP brings people together within nations and around the world, fostering partnerships and sharing ways to promote participation, accountability and effectiveness at all levels.
• Poverty Reduction: Developing countries are working to create their own national pov-erty eradication strategies based on local needs and priorities. UNDP advocates for these nationally-owned solutions and helps ensure their effectiveness. We sponsor innovative pilot projects; connect countries to global best practices and resources; promote the role of women in development; and bring governments, civil society and outside funders together to coordinate their efforts.
• Crisis Prevention and Recovery: Many countries are increasingly vulnerable to violent confl icts or natural disasters that can erase decades of development and further en-trench poverty and inequality. Through its global network, UNDP seeks out and shares innovative approaches to crisis prevention, early warning and confl ict resolution as it has done recently in Afghanistan, Sierra Leone and Timor-Leste. And because UNDP is on the ground in almost every developing country, wherever the next crisis occurs, we will be there to help bridge the gap between emergency relief and long-term development.
• Energy and Environment: The poor are disproportionately affected by environmental degradation and lack of access to clean, affordable energy services. Energy and environ-mental issues are also global, as climate change, loss of biodiversity and ozone layer depletion cannot be addressed by countries acting alone. UNDP, through programmes such as the Equator Initiative, and the Global Environment Facility—a partnership with the UN Environment Programme and the World Bank—helps countries strengthen their capacity to address these challenges at the global, national and community levels, seeking out and sharing best practices, providing innovative policy advice and linking partners through pilot projects.
• HIV/AIDS: To prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS and reduce its impact, developing countries need to mobilize all levels of government and civil society. As a trusted development partner, UNDP advocates for placing HIV/AIDS at the centre of national planning and budgets; helps build national capacity to manage initiatives that include people and in-stitutions not usually involved with public health; and promotes decentralized responses that support community level action. Because HIV/AIDS is a worldwide problem, UNDP supports these national efforts by offering knowledge, resources and best practices from around the world.
In each of these fi ve areas, UNDP advocates for the protection of human rightsIn each of these fi ve areas, UNDP advocates for the protection of human rightsIn each of these fi ve areas, UNDP advocates for the protection of and especially the empowerment of women. Through our global network, we seek out and share ways to promote gender equality as an essential dimension of ensuring political participation and accountability; economic empowerment and effective development planning; crisis prevention and confl ict resolution; access to clean water, sanitation and energy services; and society-wide mobilization against HIV/AIDS.
Within the UN SystemUNDP is at the centre of the UN’s efforts to reduce global poverty. At the global level, UNDP chairs the UN Development Group, which includes the UN’s key players in international development. At the country level, the UNDP Resident Representa-tive serves as Resident Coordinator of all UN development activities. Working to ensure the strategic integration of develop-ment efforts within the UN and among governments, donors and civil society is one of UNDP’s most important roles. In a world of limited resources and capacities, UNDP helps to ensure the most effective use of UN and international aid resources.
Around the WorldUNDP has a unique voice in international development. The annual Human Development Report, commissioned by UNDP, Human Development Report, commissioned by UNDP, Human Development Reportfocuses the global debate on key development issues, providing new measurement tools, innovative analysis and often controversial policy proposals. It is guided by the belief that development is ultimately a process of enlarging people’s choices, not just raising national incomes. The independent team of experts who write the Report draw on a worldwide network of leaders from academia, government and civil society who contribute data, ideas, and best practices. Developing countries and their international partners use the Report to gauge results and shape new policies.
The global Report’s analytical framework and inclusive approach carry over into regional, national and local human development reports. The Arab Human Development Report, prepared by Arab scholars and intellectuals, has provided an hon-Arab Human Development Report, prepared by Arab scholars and intellectuals, has provided an hon-Arab Human Development Reportest, balanced—and at times—harsh view of the obstacles to development in the Arab world. And UNDP has also sponsored reports on the limitations of democracy in Latin America, the plight of the Roma in Europe and the importance of promoting entrepreneurship in developing countries. At the country level, more than 500 National Human Development Reports have been published in 143 countries. These Reports are created by national experts and intellectuals and in many cases, their research and advocacy has spurred policy debates that have inspired leaders in countries to build their own devel-opment solutions. UNDP also sponsors the Millennium Project which, with contributions from more than 250 development experts, produced far-reaching recommendations for eliminating poverty and achieving the MDGs.
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Strictly embargoed until 15:00 Cape Town (13:00 GMT, 08:00 New York) 9 November 2006
World water and sanitation crisis urgently needs a Global Action Plan The 2006 Human Development Report calls for 20 litres of clean water a day for all as a human right Cape Town, 9 November 2006—A Global Action Plan under G8 leadership is urgently needed to resolve a growing water and sanitation crisis that causes nearly two million child deaths every year, says the 2006 Human Development Report, released here today. Across much of the developing world, unclean water is an immeasurably greater threat to human security than violent conflict, according to the Report, entitled Beyond scarcity: Power, poverty and the global water crisis. Each year, the authors report, 1.8 million children die from diarrhoea that could be prevented with access to clean water and a toilet; 443 million school days are lost to water-related illnesses; and almost 50 percent of all people in developing countries are suffering at any given time from a health problem caused by a lack of water and sanitation. To add to these human costs, the crisis in water and sanitation holds back economic growth, with sub-Saharan Africa losing five percent of GDP annually—far more than the region receives in aid. Yet unlike wars and natural disasters, this global crisis does not galvanise concerted international action, says the 2006 Human Development Report (HDR). “Like hunger, it is a silent emergency experienced by the poor and tolerated by those with the resources, the technology and the political power to end it,” says the Report. With less than a decade left to reach the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015, this needs to change, stress the authors. G8 countries must take action “When it comes to water and sanitation, the world suffers from a surplus of conference activity and a deficit of credible action. The diversity of international actors has militated against the development of strong international champions for water and sanitation,” says Kevin Watkins, lead author of the 2006 Human Development Report. “National governments need to draw up credible plans and strategies for tackling the crisis in water and sanitation. But we also need a Global Action Plan—with active buy-in from the G8 countries—to focus fragmented international efforts to mobilize resources and galvanize political action by putting water and sanitation front and centre on the development agenda,” he says. The Action Plan would act as a ‘virtual mechanism,’ says the Report, which cites the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria—run by a small secretariat with minimal bureaucracy—as a useful reference point. “I fully support the call for a Global Action Plan to tackle the growing water and sanitation crisis,” said UNDP Administrator Kemal Derviş. “As the 2006 Human Development Report highlights, each one of the eight Millennium Development Goals is inextricably tied to the next, so if we fail on the water and sanitation goal, hope of reaching the other seven rapidly fades.
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“Either we take concerted action now to bring clean water and sanitation to the world’s poor, or we consign millions of people to lives of avoidable poverty, poor health and diminished opportunities, and perpetuate deep inequalities within and between countries. And we have a collective responsibility to succeed,” he said. Governments should spend 1% GDP on water and sanitation The HDR 2006 recommends that in addition to creating a Global Action Plan, the following three foundations are crucial for success:
1. Make water a human right—and mean it: “Everyone should have at least 20 litres of clean water per day and the poor should get it for free,” says the Report: While a person in the UK or USA sends 50 litres down the drain each day by simply flushing their toilet, many poor people survive on less than five litres of contaminated water per day, according to HDR research. The Report advocates for all governments to go beyond vague constitutional principles in enabling legislation to secure the human right to a secure, accessible and affordable supply of water. At a minimum, this implies a target of at least 20 litres of clean water a day for every citizen—and at no cost for those too poor to pay, stress the authors.
2. Draw up national strategies for water and sanitation: Governments should aim to spend a minimum of one percent GDP on water and sanitation, and enhance equity, the authors urge: Water and sanitation suffer from chronic under-funding. Public spending is typically less than 0.5 percent of GDP. Research for the 2006 HDR shows that this figure is dwarfed by military spending: In Ethiopia, for example, the military budget is 10 times the water and sanitation budget—in Pakistan, 47 times. The Report’s authors urge all governments to prepare national plans for accelerating progress in water and sanitation, with ambitious targets backed with financing to the tune of at least one percent of GDP, and clear strategies for overcoming inequalities.
3. Increased international aid: The Report calls for an extra US$3.4 billion to $4 billion annually: Development assistance has fallen in real terms over the past decade, but to bring the MDG on water and sanitation into reach, aid flows will have to double, says the Report.
It states that progress in water and sanitation requires large upfront investments with a very long payback period, so innovative financing strategies like the International Finance Facility are essential. This would be money well-spent, according to the authors, who estimate the economic return in saved time, increased productivity and reduced health costs at $8 for each $1 invested in achieving the water and sanitation target.
What could progress mean for the poor? The 2006 HDR estimates the total additional cost of achieving the MDG on access to water and sanitation—to be sourced domestically and internationally—at about $10 billion a year. “The $10 billion price tag for the MDG seems a large sum—but it has to be put in context. It represents less than five days’ worth of global military spending and less than half what rich countries spend each year on mineral water,” says the Report. The human-development gains would be immense, stress the authors. The Report shows that closing the gap between current trends and the MDG target on water and sanitation would save more than one million children’s lives over the next decade and bring total economic benefits of about $38 billion annually. The benefits for Sub-Saharan Africa—about $15 billion—would represent 60 percent of its 2003 aid flows. As it now stands, the world is on schedule to reach the MDG on access to water—largely because of strong progress in China and India—but only two regions, East Asia and Latin America, are on track for sanitation. Moreover, this global picture masks real problems: On current trends sub-Saharan Africa will reach the water target in 2040 and the sanitation target in 2076. For sanitation South Asia is four years off track, and for water the Arab States are 27 years off track.
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Measured on a country-by-country basis, this means that 234 million people will miss the water target, with 55 countries off track, and 430 million people will not reach the sanitation target, with 74 countries off track, says the Report. “Can the world afford to meet the costs of accelerated progress towards water and sanitation provision?” asks lead author Watkins. “The more appropriate question is: Can the world afford not to make the investments?” Cost of the crisis “Delivering clean water, removing waste water, and providing sanitation are three of the most basic foundations for human progress,” says the 2006 HDR. But 1.1 billion people do not have access to water, and 2.6 billion do not have access to sanitation. The Report adds: “ ‘Not having access to clean water’ is a euphemism for profound deprivation. It means that people walk more than one kilometre to the nearest source of clean water for drinking, that they collect water from drains, ditches or streams that might be infected with pathogens and bacteria that can cause severe illness and death.” ‘No access to sanitation’ means that in slums like Kibera, outside the Kenyan capital of Nairobi, people defecate in plastic bags—known colloquially as ‘flying toilets’—and throw them into open sewers in the street because they have no other option. And the poorer you are, the more you pay for clean water, according to HDR research: The poorest households of El Salvador, Jamaica and Nicaragua spend on average over 10 percent of their income on water. In the United Kingdom, spending three percent of family income on water is considered the hardship threshold. Indeed, HDR 2006 highlights huge disparities in the prices that people pay for water. People living in urban slums typically pay 5-10 times more per litre than people living in high-income areas. And people living in the poorest parts of cities like Accra and Manila pay more than the residents of London, New York and Paris. One-third of all people without access to water fall below the $1-a-day absolute poverty threshold. Another third live on no more than $2 a day. In sanitation, the poorest two-fifths of households in the world account for more than half the global deficit, according to the 2006 HDR. These figures are not evidence of causation—people might lack water and sanitation because they are poor, or they might be poor because they lack water and sanitation—but the numbers do signal a strong two-way relationship between income poverty and deprivation in access to water, the authors stress. And the public-versus-private debate on water is not helping the poor, argues the 2006 HDR. “The debate over the relative merits of public and private sector performance has been a distraction from the inadequate performance of both public and private water providers in overcoming the global water deficit,” says the Report. Beyond the household The poor need ‘water for life’—for drinking, cooking and washing—as well as water to grow food and earn a living, says the Report. Yet poor farmers face a potentially catastrophic water crisis from the combination of climate change and competition for scarce water resources, stress the authors. The great majority of the world’s malnourished people—estimated now at 830 million—are small farmers, herders, and farm labourers. Climate change threatens to intensify their water insecurity on an unparalleled scale, with parts of sub-Saharan Africa facing crop losses of up to 25 percent. At the same time, competition over water to produce food is escalating at an alarming rate in developing countries, with political and economic power, not concern for poverty, acting as the driving force, says the Report. Shoring up the rights of the rural poor, increasing their access to irrigation and new technology and helping them adapt to inevitable climate change will be imperative to ward off disaster, contend the authors.
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Faced with these challenges, need for increasing cooperation across national borders to ensure water security for the poor is more tangible than ever, as by 2025, over three billion people could be living in countries under water stress, says the Report. That said, the 2006 HDR challenges predictions that increasing competition for water will inevitably provoke armed conflicts. The Report finds, in fact, that cross-border cooperation over water resources is already far more pervasive and successful than is commonly presumed. India and Pakistan, for example, despite two cross-border wars and constant geopolitical tension, have for half a century jointly managed shared watersheds through the Permanent Indus Water Commission. “Managing shared water can be a force for peace or for conflict, but it is politics that will decide which course is chosen,” says Watkins. The 2006 HDR stresses that the right political choices on water and sanitation could in fact hold the key to solving the global crisis, as history demonstrates.
History shows the crisis can be fixed Just over 100 years ago, infant mortality rates in Washington, DC, were twice what they are today in sub-Saharan Africa, write the authors. Water-borne diseases like diarrhoea, dysentery and typhoid fever accounted for 1 in 10 deaths in US cities in the late 19th century, with children the primary victims. The Report recounts that in the UK and elsewhere, people were getting wealthier through the industrial revolution, but not healthier. The poor moved from rural to urban areas to benefit from the boom while overwhelmed cities turned into lethal open-air sewers, and epidemics of typhoid and cholera regularly swept through cities like New Orleans and New York. In the hot summer of 1858, the UK Parliament was forced to temporarily close during what became known as ‘The Great Stink,’ caused by sewerage flowing into the river Thames. For the rich, it was a nuisance. For the poor, who got their drinking water from the river, it was a killer. By the end of the 19th century, governments recognized that the diseases associated with water and sanitation could not be contained in the cities’ poor tenements; it was in the greater public’s interest to take action. In the UK, US and elsewhere, massive investments were made in effective sewerage systems and the purification of water supplies to great effect. No other period in US history, for example, has witnessed such rapid declines in mortality rates. This change reflected a rare instance in history where a major social ill was successfully resolved. And it could happen again, says the 2006 HDR: “Resolving the water and sanitation crisis could be the next great leap forward for mankind,” says Watkins. “We urgently need history to repeat itself—this time in developing countries.”
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* * * * BROADCAST FOOTAGE ON THE 2006 HDR IS AVAILABLE under embargo from Wednesday, 1 November at http://hdr.undp.org/hdr2006/media. For broadcast enquiries, please contact Boaz Paldi, [email protected], +1 917 213 7520. ABOUT THIS REPORT: The Human Development Report continues to frame debates on some of the most pressing challenges facing humanity. It is an independent report commissioned by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). Kevin Watkins is the Lead Author of the 2006 report, which includes special contributions from U.K. Chancellor Gordon Brown, Nigeria’s Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, President Lula of Brazil, Former U.S. President Carter, and UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan. The Report is translated into more than a dozen languages and launched in more than 100 countries annually. Further information can be found at http://hdr.undp.org/hdr2006. The 2006 Human Development Report is published in English by Palgrave Macmillan. ABOUT UNDP: UNDP is the UN's global network to help people meet their development needs and build a better life. We are on the ground in 166 countries, working as a trusted partner with governments, civil society and the private sector to help them build their own solutions to global and national development challenges. Further information can be found at www.undp.org
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Strictly embargoed until 15:00 Cape Town (13:00 GMT, 08:00 New York) 9 November 2006
Why children die for lack of a toilet World sanitation crisis causes millions of avoidable deaths, and contamination from human waste is largely to blame, says UNDP’s Human Development Report
Cape Town, 9 November 2006—Simply installing a flush toilet in the home increases by
almost 60 percent a Peruvian child’s chances of surviving to her first birthday, according
to data in the 2006 Human Development Report documenting the often-fatal consequences
of inadequate sanitation in developing countries.
The Report shows that the efficacy of human-waste disposal is one of the strongest
determinants of child survival around the world. Improving sanitation in the home—
advancing from open defecation to using a pit latrine to installing a flush toilet—
reduces overall child mortality by about a third, say the authors of the Report, entitled
Beyond scarcity: power, poverty and the global water crisis.
More than 2.6 billion people still lack access to proper sanitation, and 1.1 billion people
have no regular access to clean water. As a result, 1.8 million children die from diarrhoea
each year, making the disease the second-largest cause of global child mortality, says
the Report.
The toilet may seem an unlikely catalyst for human development, but the Report provides
abundant and powerful evidence to shows how it benefits people’s well-being. Research
shows that in Peru, access to a flush toilet reduces the risk of infant death by 59 percent,
compared with an infant in a household without adequate sanitation. In Egypt, similarly,
data show the risk of infant death plummeting by 57 percent in households with toilets.
“ ‘No access to sanitation’ is a polite way of saying that people draw water for drinking,
cooking and washing from rivers, lakes, ditches and drains fouled with human and animal
excrement,” said Kevin Watkins, head of UNDP’s Human Development Report Office and
the report’s principal author. “It means that in slums like Kibera, outside Nairobi, people
defecate in plastic bags and throw them into the street because they have no other option.”
The crisis in water and sanitation is—above all—a crisis for the poor. More than 660
million people without sanitation live on US$2 or less a day, and more than 385 million
live on $1 or less a day. That said, coverage rates for sanitation are far lower than those for
water even in higher-income groups: A quarter of the richest 20 percent of people in
developing countries have no access to improved sanitation, says the Report.
The Report lays out the following steps as prerequisites for progress:
• Better political leadership: Leaders need to send a clear signal that sanitation
is part of their national development policies.
• Ensuring public participation is part of national planning.
• Investing in demand-led approaches through which service providers respond
to the needs of communities, with women having a voice in shaping priorities.
• Through innovative financial arrangements or subsidies, extending financial support
to the poorest households to ensure that sanitation is an affordable option.
• Addressing inequality by identifying who has access and who does not. This would
include supplementing the current MDG sanitation target with explicit targets for
reducing inequalities based on gender, wealth and location.
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• Developing a Global Action Plan on water and sanitation to mobilize finance, support developing-country
governments’ use of local capital markets, and enhance capacity to act, while also acting as a focal point for public
advocacy and political efforts.
Access to basic sanitation is a crucial human-development goal in its own right; for millions of people, the absence
of a safe, private and convenient toilet facility is a daily source of indignity, as well as a threat to well-being. But it
is also a bridge to far-broader human development. The lack of basic sanitation drags down the benefits of access to
clean water, and the health, gender and other inequalities caused by a sanitation deficit systematically undermine
progress in education and wealth creation, and foster poverty.
Unfit for discussion
Instead of being recognized as the international emergency it is, sanitation is entirely absent from political campaigns
and public debate. The realities of open defecation are relegated to backroom politics, and as a result, progress has
been glacial, says the Report. The authors point to stigma as one of the greatest obstacles.
The parallels between the stigma of sanitation issues and that of AIDS are both instructive and troubling. Until fairly
recently, the Report points out, the cultural and social taboos surrounding HIV and AIDS impeded development of
effective national and international responses, at enormous human cost.
That taboo has been weakening, partly because of the scale of the HIV/AIDS
scourge—but also because the condition afflicts all members of society,
without regard for social or economic status. Because the crisis in sanitation
overwhelmingly targets the poor, its taboo remains stubbornly intact.
Women’s burden
Gender inequality is a second major impediment to progress. Young girls,
particularly after puberty, are less likely to attend classes if schools do not
have suitable hygiene facilities, and the authors estimate that about half the
girls in Sub-Saharan Africa who drop out of school do so because of poor
water and sanitation facilities.
Studies from Cambodia, Indonesia and Vietnam show that women consistently
rank having a toilet high on their list of priorities for a life of dignity and good
health, but their voices are seldom heard. Empowering women may be the most
effective way to increase demand for sanitation, says the Report.
From the ground up
The Report offers concrete examples of how grassroots action combined
with government leadership can improve sanitation for the poor. In the Orangi
slum of Pakistan’s capital, Karachi, near-universal participation in a grassroots
sanitation project has helped bring about a drop in infant mortality from
130 deaths per 1,000 live births in the early 1980s to fewer than 40 deaths
per 1,000 live births today.
Ten years ago, Bangladesh had one of the lowest levels in the world of
access to proper sanitation in its rural areas. Despite being one of the world’s
poorest countries, it is now on target to achieve nationwide sanitation coverage
by 2010, thanks to a ‘total sanitation campaign’ promoted by NGOs and
local authorities. The campaign appeals to three drivers of change: disgust,
self-interest and a sense of individual responsibility for community welfare.
The same approach is now being employed in Cambodia, China, India
and Zambia.
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The report stresses, however, that while community-led initiatives are critical, they are not a substitute for government
action.
What needs to happen?
The biggest barrier in sanitation, the authors conclude, is the unwillingness of national and international political
leaders to put the growing crisis on the international development agenda. Tackling the problem requires greater
awareness of the real costs—not just to poor people, but to societies as a whole—of ‘no access to sanitation,’
the Report says, arguing for wider recognition that sanitation is a basic human right.
* * * *
BROADCAST FOOTAGE ON THE 2006 HDR IS AVAILABLE under embargo from Wednesday,
1 November at http://hdr.undp.org/hdr2006/media. For broadcast enquiries, please contact Boaz Paldi,
ABOUT THIS REPORT: The Human Development Report continues to frame debates on some of the most
pressing challenges facing humanity. It is an independent report commissioned by the United Nations Development
Programme (UNDP). Kevin Watkins is the Lead Author of the 2006 report, which includes special contributions
from UK Chancellor Gordon Brown, Nigeria’s former Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, President Lula of
Brazil, Former US President Jimmy Carter, and UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan. The Report is translated into more
than a dozen languages and launched in more than 100 countries annually. Further information can be found at
http://hdr.undp.org/hdr2006. The 2006 Human Development Report is published in English by Palgrave Macmillan.
ABOUT UNDP: UNDP is the UN's global network to help people meet their development needs and build a better
life. We are on the ground in 166 countries, working as a trusted partner with governments, civil society and the
private sector to help them build their own solutions to global and national development challenges. Further
information can be found at www.undp.org
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Strictly embargoed until 15:00 Cape Town (13:00 GMT, 08:00 New York) 9 November 2006
Poor farmers face double water crisis:
climate change and competition Stronger rights, better irrigation and adaptation to global warming can avert catastrophe—if they arrive in time, says 2006 Human Development Report
Cape Town, 9 November 2006—Poor farmers face a potentially catastrophic water
crisis from the combination of climate change and competition for scarce water resources,
says the 2006 Human Development Report, released today.
The Report, entitled Beyond scarcity: Power, poverty and the global water crisis,
recommends immediate steps needed to avert a serious crisis: shoring up the rights of
the rural poor, increasing their access to irrigation and new technology and helping them
adapt to inevitable climate change.
“The biggest challenge ahead is how to manage water resources faced with competition
and climate change to meet rising food needs while protecting the access of poor and
vulnerable people,” said 2006 HDR lead author Kevin Watkins.
Intensifying competition for water is now one of the gravest threats to sustained human
development. Rising industrial demand, urbanization, population growth and pollution
are placing unprecedented stress on water systems—and on agriculture. As competition
intensifies, social conflict over water is likely to increase. The danger is that those with
the weakest rights—small farmers and women producers in particular—will lose out.
The great majority of the world’s malnourished people—estimated now at 830 million —
are small farmers, herders, and farm labourers. The regions where the world’s hungry are
now concentrated will have to absorb the bulk of the planet’s additional population over
the next decades, estimated at 2.4 billion by 2050. And as most of them will be dependent
on rainfed agriculture, the number of those at risk will continue to rise.
Climate change threatens to intensify water insecurity on an unparalleled scale. Even with
an agreement to mitigate carbon emissions through international cooperation, dangerous
climate change is now almost inevitable, and the most severe consequences will be
experienced by countries and people who bear no responsibility for the problem. Parts of
sub-Saharan Africa are facing crop losses of up to 25 percent from climate-change-
induced weather patterns. Meanwhile, accelerated glacial melt and reduced rainfall
threaten major food systems in South Asia.
The way forward
The Report recommends three primary courses of action to address the crisis threatening
poor farmers around the globe:
• Securing farmers’ rights: When water is in short supply, the powerful get it and the
weak don’t, says the 2006 HDR. Secure rights to water give poor people opportunities
to escape poverty, while the absence of those rights renders them unable to compete on
any level. Women are doubly disadvantaged, suffering from a lack of formal rights to
land and a lack of informal rights inside and outside the home. The Report states that
to maintain human progress, governments must recognize, extend and protect the water
rights of the rural poor.
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• Irrigation and technology: Farmers with access to irrigation are less likely to be
among the poorest, stress the authors. But new sources of water for irrigation are
increasingly expensive and ecologically damaging, so the danger is that those with
no rights will get no access. And marginal farmers’ lack of formal land titles can
easily exclude them from irrigation schemes The Report therefore recommends
putting a price on irrigation use—a price directly linked to people’s ability to pay.
Efficient and fair cost-recovery systems linked to the benefits gained from irrigation
would help to rationalize the use of water and to pay for maintenance of irrigation
infrastructure, it says.
• Adaptation: Climate change is no longer a distant worry—it is happening, says
the 2006 HDR, and the poor need more and better assistance if they are to adapt to
it. International aid for adaptation ought to be a cornerstone of multilateral action
on climate change, yet aid transfers have been woefully inadequate, says the Report.
The Adaptation Fund attached to the Kyoto Protocol will mobilize only about
US$20 million by 2012 on current projections, while the Global Environmental
Facility—the principal multilateral mechanism for adaptation—has allocated
$50 million to support adaptation activities between 2005 and 2007.
Beyond the multilateral framework, developing countries as a group have seen aid to agriculture fall from 12 percent
to 3.5 percent of total aid since the early 1990s. Reversing these trends will be critical to successful adaptation.
The Report says tripling aid to agriculture—from $3 billion annually to $10 billion by 2010--should be a minimum
requirement.
Climate change
Efforts thus far to help the poor to adapt to climate change have been ‘spectacularly inadequate,’ says the Report.
As dry areas get drier, wet areas get wetter and extreme weather becomes more common, the poor—who are usually
most exposed to the elements and most directly dependent on the natural world for resources—will become more
vulnerable to hunger, poverty and environmental degradation. Inequality will intensify.
Agriculture will be the hardest hit. In some regions, changing rainfall patterns and declining water availability will
reduce yields by a quarter or more by 2050. Global malnutrition could increase by 15 to 26 percent, says the Report,
with 75 to 125 million more people facing malnourishment by 2080.
But suffering for lack of water isn’t just a problem for future
generations. Today in northeast Kenya, three million people risk
starvation from drought. Entire pastoral communities have seen
their herds and assets depleted, leaving them increasingly vulnerable
to all future risks. Violent clashes between farmers and pastoralists
over water have become increasingly common, while Kenya’s GDP
fell 16 percent between 1998 and 2000 due to drought. The full
economic costs are probably much greater since these figures fail to
count the effects of malnutrition, reduced investment in agriculture
and a loss of investment in industry, stress the authors.
Competition
As climate change disproportionately hurts the rural poor who
depend on agriculture but lack established rights, economic
empowerment and a political voice, increasing competition for
water has the potential to push these people ever closer to disaster,
says the Report. More and more, farmers are losing out to the
growing thirst of cities and industries. Within agriculture, larger
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commercial producers are siphoning off the lifeline water supplies of poorer farmers, who then can neither produce a
secure food supply for themselves nor begin to compete with these commercial rivals, let alone the heavily subsidized
agricultural might of the developed world.
Rapid economic growth has put a serious strain on China’s water resources, for example,
especially in the country’s north. With only eight percent of the country’s water
resources, the Huai, Hai and Huang (Yellow) River Basins (3-H river basins) supply
water to almost half of the country’s population and 40 percent of its agricultural land,
so they are already under great strain, says the 2006 HDR. But rapid economic growth
has caused industry’s share of that water to double since 1980 to 21 percent, while the
urban share has tripled. The Report estimates that demand from non-agricultural sources
will rise a further 30 percent by 2030.
As demand increases in China, poor farmers are losing their entitlements to water, often
without compensation. Attempts by water-user associations to establish water rights and
claims linked to the transfer of water have come under pressure from powerful groups in
industry and municipalities.
As people get wealthier, they get ‘thirstier’
Compounding the formidable dual challenge of competition and climate change is the fact that the number of people
who need to be fed continues to rise. And it takes more water to feed people than ever before: As people get wealthier,
they tend to eat different things, and meat and sugar are much more water-intensive to produce than wheat or rice.
Producing a single hamburger takes about 11,000 litres of water—roughly the same daily allotment as that of
500 residents of an urban slum without a household water connection.
Dependent on their increasingly volatile natural surroundings and squeezed by powerful competition for water
resources, poor farmers in the developing world risk losing the ability to make a living. The 2006 Human
Development Report makes clear that without secure water rights, better access to irrigation and help in adapting
to climate change, their water security will be eroded, and their lives will be increasingly fragile.
* * * *
BROADCAST FOOTAGE ON THE 2006 HDR IS AVAILABLE under embargo from Wednesday,
1 November at http://hdr.undp.org/hdr2006/media. For broadcast enquiries, please contact Boaz Paldi,