1. Women in Europe for a Common Future has now published the report of the meeting held in Brussels on 29 January (see blog of 30 January): European Sanitation Policies and Practises in the International Year of Sanitation 2008: Finding solutions for more than 20 million citizens who lack safe and affordable sanitation.
2. All the PowerPoint presentations made at the international conference ‘Sanitation Challenge' (see blog of 21 May) are now available here.
3. Governance: The Global Water Forum has just published Water Financing and Governance − quote: “The financial needs [of the water sector] will not be met without major reforms in water governance. By improving water governance the enabling environment for investment will improve as risks, commercial and political, will be better understood and addressed.”
4. The Assembly of the African Union (see blog of 14 June) has just posted the Sharm El-Sheikh Commitments for Accelerating the Achievement of Water and Sanitation Goals in Africa − see pages 30−32 of this file. “Motherhood and apple pie”, of course. Actions speak louder than Words, so we’ll wait and see what Africa actually does to help itself to achieve its MDG WatSan targets.
Update 30 July: The International Institute for Sustainable Development has just published a Briefing Note on the Outcomes of the Eleventh African Union Summit, including details of the Sharm El-Sheikh commitments on achieving the WatSan targets.
Sunday, 27 July 2008
Thursday, 24 July 2008
More on Governance
Further to my blog of 15 June on Sanitation Governance, there are a few more very useful websites: (1) the UNDP Water Governance Facility − “Governance systems determine who gets what water, when, and how, and decide who has the right to water and related services”, (2) the Water Integrity Network, (3) UNICORN − see its water page, and (4) EMPOWERS, the Euro-Med Participatory Water Resources Scenarios (active in Egypt, Jordan, and Palestine).
A very interesting paper was published in Water Policy last year: The role of governance in countering corruption: an African case study.
There’s also Tracing Power and Influence in Networks: Net-Map as a Tool for Research and Strategic Network Planning published last month by the International Food Policy Research Institute − all about multistakeholder water governance. There’s a Net-Map toolbox blog as well.
A very interesting paper was published in Water Policy last year: The role of governance in countering corruption: an African case study.
There’s also Tracing Power and Influence in Networks: Net-Map as a Tool for Research and Strategic Network Planning published last month by the International Food Policy Research Institute − all about multistakeholder water governance. There’s a Net-Map toolbox blog as well.
Latest JMP report
The WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme has just published its latest report Progress on Drinking-water and Sanitation: Special Focus on Sanitation. It's a "must read" and hugely more informative than earlier JMP reports. Dr Margaret Chan, the Director-General of WHO, says: "We have today a full menu of low-cost technical options for the provision of sanitation in most settings. More and more governments are determined to improve health by bringing water and sanitation to their poorest populations. If we want to break the stranglehold of poverty, and reap the multiple benefits for health, we must address water and sanitation." Quite so.
Corruption in the Water Sector
Cambridge University Press has just published the Global Corruption Report 2008: Corruption in the Water Sector, compiled by Transparency International. Here’s what Transparency International says about it (here):
More than 1 billion people live with inadequate access to safe drinking water, with dramatic consequences for lives, livelihoods and development. Transparency International’s Global Corruption Report 2008 demonstrates in its thematic section that corruption is a cause and catalyst for this water crisis, which is likely to be further exacerbated by climate change. Corruption affects all aspects of the water sector, from water resources management to drinking water services, irrigation and hydropower. In this timely report, scholars and professionals document the impact of corruption in the sector, with case studies from all around the world offering practical suggestions for reform.
The second part of the Global Corruption Report 2008 provides a snapshot of corruption-related developments in thirty-five countries from all world regions. The third part presents summaries of corruption-related research, highlighting innovative methodologies and new empirical findings that help our understanding of the dynamics of corruption and in devising more effective anti-corruption strategies.
My reaction: What a read, what a sickening read! [And you can download the whole report here.]
Friday, 27 June 2008
Safer Water, Better Health
The World Health Organization has just published Safer Water, Better Health: Costs, Benefits and Sustainability of Interventions to Protect and Promote Health by Annette Prüss-Üstün, Robert Bos, Fiona Gore and Jamie Bartram. It’s a good read – but also disturbing as “Almost one tenth of the global disease burden could be prevented by improving water supply, sanitation, hygiene and management of water resources”.
Table 1 on page 12 (pdf page 16) in Safer Water, Better Health gives a summary of the situation in 2002 (country-by-country information is given in Annex I). In developing countries there were 2.4 million deaths in that year due to inadequate domestic water supplies, sanitation and hygiene (5.5% of total deaths). This is in huge contrast to the number in industrialized countries where there were only 24,000 deaths due to inadequate domestic WSH (0.2% of total deaths).
Globally children under 15 suffer most, with just over 2.2 million deaths in 2002 due to inadequate domestic WSH (nearly 19% of all U15 deaths). This really means that governments that don’t invest in WSH for all their citizens are effectively killing nearly one in five of their children under the age of 15 – every year. I think bald statements like this are becoming necessary to kick-start some governments into action − you always have to talk louder to those who are deaf or choose not to hear.
Table 1 on page 12 (pdf page 16) in Safer Water, Better Health gives a summary of the situation in 2002 (country-by-country information is given in Annex I). In developing countries there were 2.4 million deaths in that year due to inadequate domestic water supplies, sanitation and hygiene (5.5% of total deaths). This is in huge contrast to the number in industrialized countries where there were only 24,000 deaths due to inadequate domestic WSH (0.2% of total deaths).
Globally children under 15 suffer most, with just over 2.2 million deaths in 2002 due to inadequate domestic WSH (nearly 19% of all U15 deaths). This really means that governments that don’t invest in WSH for all their citizens are effectively killing nearly one in five of their children under the age of 15 – every year. I think bald statements like this are becoming necessary to kick-start some governments into action − you always have to talk louder to those who are deaf or choose not to hear.
Sunday, 15 June 2008
Sanitation governance
First of all, what is ‘governance’? This seems to be a valid question, especially if you read the new World Bank blog on the subject − one of the first postings was essentially an answer to this question: What we talk about when we talk about governance. The World Bank also has a helpful Knowledge in Development Note on Governance (2007) and a very informative Governance and Anticorruption website.
The UK Department for International Development (DFID) in its 2006 White Paper Eliminating World Poverty: Making Governance Work for the Poor is a little more specific (page 22):
So what is good governance? Good governance is not just about government. It is also about political parties, parliament, the judiciary, the media, and civil society. It is about how citizens, leaders and public institutions relate to each other in order to make change happen. Elections and democracy are an important part of the equation, but equally important is the way government goes about the business of governing. Good governance requires three things:
• State capability – the extent to which leaders and governments are able to get things done.
• Responsiveness – whether public policies and institutions respond to the needs of citizens and uphold their rights.
• Accountability – the ability of citizens, civil society and the private sector to scrutinise public institutions and governments and hold them to account. This includes, ultimately, the opportunity to change leaders by democratic means.
So how does all this relate to sanitation? Democracy is good for your health (see 2004 article in the British Medical Journal here), but we know that even in good democracies (Tanzania, for instance) there’s not 100% sanitation coverage. Has anyone done any work on sanitation coverage in democracies and non-democracies in Sub-Saharan Africa, for example? Now we have the JMP report A Snapshot of Sanitation in Africa, this shouldn’t be too difficult. I’ll try to find time to have a go over the next few weeks.
The DFID White Paper also has this to say (page 21):
Effective states and better governance are essential to combat poverty. States which respect civil liberties and are accountable to their citizens are more stable, which in turn means they are more likely to attract investment and generate long term economic growth. They can also cope better with calamities. Famines, for example, are less likely where there is a free media, because the press creates pressure on governments to provide relief. Unless governance improves, poor people will continue to suffer from a lack of security, public services and economic opportunities.
So could a free press and free radio/television improve sanitation coverage by shaming the government into action? Well, if it was a really sustained attack on the lack of sanitation coverage, it might, just might. But this would take a committed journalist to champion the cause and a supportive editor. I wonder what success rates vigorous environmental organizations, like the Centre for Science and Environment in India, have had in influencing and changing government policies.
The Water Research Group at the University of Bradford, UK, works on water governance in developing countries (see, for example, Water Governance and Poverty: What Works for the Poor?), but there’s not a lot on sanitation on their website. Maybe what’s good for water governance is also good for sanitation governance?
And what can be done in the ‘bottom billion’ countries? [See The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries are Failing and What Can Be Done About It (by Professor Paul Collier of the University of Oxford, OUP, 2007) – one of the best books you’ll ever read.]
The UK Department for International Development (DFID) in its 2006 White Paper Eliminating World Poverty: Making Governance Work for the Poor is a little more specific (page 22):
So what is good governance? Good governance is not just about government. It is also about political parties, parliament, the judiciary, the media, and civil society. It is about how citizens, leaders and public institutions relate to each other in order to make change happen. Elections and democracy are an important part of the equation, but equally important is the way government goes about the business of governing. Good governance requires three things:
• State capability – the extent to which leaders and governments are able to get things done.
• Responsiveness – whether public policies and institutions respond to the needs of citizens and uphold their rights.
• Accountability – the ability of citizens, civil society and the private sector to scrutinise public institutions and governments and hold them to account. This includes, ultimately, the opportunity to change leaders by democratic means.
So how does all this relate to sanitation? Democracy is good for your health (see 2004 article in the British Medical Journal here), but we know that even in good democracies (Tanzania, for instance) there’s not 100% sanitation coverage. Has anyone done any work on sanitation coverage in democracies and non-democracies in Sub-Saharan Africa, for example? Now we have the JMP report A Snapshot of Sanitation in Africa, this shouldn’t be too difficult. I’ll try to find time to have a go over the next few weeks.
The DFID White Paper also has this to say (page 21):
Effective states and better governance are essential to combat poverty. States which respect civil liberties and are accountable to their citizens are more stable, which in turn means they are more likely to attract investment and generate long term economic growth. They can also cope better with calamities. Famines, for example, are less likely where there is a free media, because the press creates pressure on governments to provide relief. Unless governance improves, poor people will continue to suffer from a lack of security, public services and economic opportunities.
So could a free press and free radio/television improve sanitation coverage by shaming the government into action? Well, if it was a really sustained attack on the lack of sanitation coverage, it might, just might. But this would take a committed journalist to champion the cause and a supportive editor. I wonder what success rates vigorous environmental organizations, like the Centre for Science and Environment in India, have had in influencing and changing government policies.
The Water Research Group at the University of Bradford, UK, works on water governance in developing countries (see, for example, Water Governance and Poverty: What Works for the Poor?), but there’s not a lot on sanitation on their website. Maybe what’s good for water governance is also good for sanitation governance?
And what can be done in the ‘bottom billion’ countries? [See The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries are Failing and What Can Be Done About It (by Professor Paul Collier of the University of Oxford, OUP, 2007) – one of the best books you’ll ever read.]
ASKNet − The African Sanitation Knowledge Network
This should be a really good idea as the goal of ASKNet is “To enhance the ability of academics and professionals across the disciplines to contribute to the mainstreaming and up-scaling of sustainable sanitation in Sub-Saharan Africa, to the benefit of livelihoods, health, and the environment.” Although ASKNet was launched at AfricaSan2008 in February (see blog of 21 February), the ASKNet website is virtually empty. I don’t know why this is – but you might get an inkling of the reason(s) if you read the rather complex ASKNet by-laws (and you’ll see you have to pay to join). Then, if you read the small print, you’ll notice that the website is maintained by EcoSanRes and the by-laws emanate from WASTE – both EcoSan-oriented organizations. A cynic might wonder if ASKNet is just meant to be another way of promoting EcoSan in Africa ...Well, I reckon a better way of getting knowledge on low-cost sanitation alternatives to ‘academics and professionals’ is through free websites like mine! Of course, there’s the ‘digital divide’ to consider and I admit I haven’t solved this yet. Maybe via the eGranary Digital Library (School of Library and Information Science at the University of Iowa). I’ll have to look into this.
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