Revealed: The extreme cost of water for the world’s poor
WaterAid releases Water: At What Cost? The State of the Worlds Water to mark World Water Day 2016
The Pacific island nation of Papua New Guinea – poor, rural, and faced with rising seas and extreme weather made worse by climate change -- is the most difficult place in the world for household access to clean water, leaving the poor no choice but to spend more than half their meagre income on this basic essential, a new WaterAid briefing shows this World Water Day, 22 March.
‘Water: At What Cost? The State of the World’s Water’ examines the most difficult places in the world for people to get clean water and reveals how the world’s poorest often pay far more of their income for water than those in the developed world
WaterAid’s analysis shows that in the developed world, a standard water bill is as little as 0.1% of the income of someone earning the minimum wage. However in a country like Madagascar, a person reliant on a tanker truck for their water supply would spend as much as 45% of their daily income on water to get just the recommended daily minimum supply. In Mozambique, families relying on black-market vendors will spend up to 100 times as much on water as those reached by government-subsidised tapstands.
Worldwide, some 650 million people in the world still do not have access to clean water and more than 2.3 billion do not have access to basic sanitation, with devastating results.
Some 315,000 children under five die each year of diarrhoeal diseases related to the lack of these basic rights. And 50% of malnutrition cases are linked to chronic diarrhoea caused by lack of clean water, good sanitation and good hygiene including handwashing with soap.
The report also ranks nations based on rates of household access to water and on highest populations without access to water, and includes a list of the countries which have improved most in the last 15 years.
Among the main findings:
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Papua New Guinea, Equatorial Guinea, and Angola are the nations in the world with the lowest percentage of households with access to clean water
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In Papua New Guinea, an average person in poverty will spend 54% of their salary on the World Health Organization-recommended minimum 50 litres of water per day to meet basic needs. Average use in the UK is about 150 litres per person, per day.
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India, China and Nigeria have the highest numbers of people waiting for access to clean water
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Cambodia, Mali, Laos and Ethiopia have made more progress than any other nations on improving access to water for their populations.
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Despite much progress, the report finds that inequalities persist even in nations that have made great strides, with the poorest often paying the highest percentages of their income on water.
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There remain 16 countries in the world where 40% or more of their population do not have access to clean water – due to lack of government prioritisation, lack of dedicated funding, shortages in human resources and the exacerbating effects of climate change on water availability and quality.
Barbara Frost, WaterAid Chief Executive, said:
“On this World Water Day, it’s shocking to realise that water – an essential for life – will cost a poor person in the developing world as much as half of their income, for an amount that is about one-third of our average daily use in the developed world.
“Clean drinking water is a right and yet one in 10 people around the world live without it. Increased competition for water resources and climate change are only exacerbating the crisis, which along with lack of sanitation is responsible for the deaths of more than 315,000 children under five each year.
“This World Water Day, let’s take a moment to reflect as you flush the toilet or turn on the tap, to think about others who are unable to take clean water for granted. We call on governments to take urgent action, and keep the promise of the UN Global Goal to deliver clean water to everyone, everywhere by 2030.”
On this World Water Day, WaterAid is reminding governments that the promises of the UN Global Goals on Sustainable Development, to eradicate extreme poverty and create a fairer, more sustainable world, includes Goal 6 to reach everyone, everywhere with clean water and access to safe, private toilets by 2030. This promise is achievable but it will take a serious political shift and financing to get there.
For a gallery of photos please see this link.
