A global clean-water shortage

A U.N. agency report calls for action to save lives and energize economies by boosting supplies and sanitation.

By Robyn Dixon, Times Staff Writer
November 10, 2006

JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA — While people in wealthy suburbs of Africa use water to maintain lush lawns and fill swimming pools, many slum dwellers struggle to obtain the crucial resource and pay much more per gallon for what little of it they can get, according to a United Nations Development Program report calling for an end to “water apartheid.”

At the same time, dirty water is the second-leading cause of death among children globally, after respiratory infections. It kills 1.8 million children younger than 5 each year, more than do HIV/AIDS, malaria, war or traffic accidents, says the U.N. report released Thursday in Cape Town.

“In the year 2015 they plan to send a spaceship to Jupiter to search for water, yet in Africa or India we can’t get water to people who need it,” Kevin Watkins, the report’s author, said at a briefing for media in Johannesburg.

The report’s main contention is that if countries increase access to clean water and sanitation simultaneously, the rates of child survival in developing countries can rocket “almost overnight,” Watkins said. Globally, 2.6 billion people have no access to proper sanitation. The 1.1 billion people who don’t have clean water use about 1.3 gallons a day.

“It is hard to find anything that has a greater impact on human life than water,” Watkins said.

In cities such as Dar es Salaam, capital of Tanzania, people pay more for water than do New Yorkers, Watkins said. The water and sanitation crisis in sub-Saharan Africa slowed economic growth by 5% of gross domestic product per year, more than the region receives in foreign aid, the report says. A big increase in spending on water and sanitation would pay for itself in economic growth.

“No other investment could bring greater benefits,” Watkins said.

Collecting water is a colossal waste of labor, he said, with the burden falling overwhelmingly on women and girls. Sub-Saharan African women spend about 40 billion hours a year walking and queuing to collect water.

Some countries spend much more on their military than on water.

In Pakistan, where diarrhea caused by dirty water kills 118,000 people each year, the government spends 0.1% of its budget on water and sanitation. It spends 47 times that on the military. India, where 450,000 die of diarrhea annually, spends eight times more on its military than on water resources, and Ethiopia, which has one of the highest rates of infant mortality due to lack of clean water and sanitation, spends 10 times more on the military.

The global cosmetics industry is $200 billion.