Africa Water, Sanitation & Hygiene Africa Water, Sanitation Jan -Feb 2014 Vol.10 No1 | Page 30

Water Management

“Although water goals and targets were achieved under
the MDGs, the main focus was on Water, Sanitation and
Hygiene (WASH), all geared towards poverty reduction,”
said Chiramba. “But there was no explicit focus on
addressing the sustainability aspect.”
As a result, say experts, water management issues were
never comprehensively addressed at the national or
international level, nor was the key role that water can play
in growing the various sectors of the economy.
This year is also the last year of the International Decade
for Action ‘Water for Life’ which began in 2005, and
will set the tone for World Water Day to be marked on
March 22, which will also focus on ‘water and sustainable
development’.
The primary goal of the ‘Water for Life’ Decade has been
to promote efforts to fulfill international commitments
made on water and water-related issues by 2015. The
Water Decade has served to forge cooperation at all
levels so that the water-related goals of the Millennium
Declaration are achieved.
The end of the Decade also marks the beginning of
new water campaigns, “this time, with great focus on the
impact of water on development,” said Chiramba.
The Zaragoza water conference has brought to the
fore the fact that the Decade has achieved the difficult
task of isolating water issues as key to the development
agenda and has provided a platform for governments
and stakeholders to address the threats that water scarcity
poses to development, experts say.
“It has also been a platform for stakeholders and
government to discuss the opportunities that exist in
exploiting water as a resource,” said Alice Shena, a civil
society representative at the event.
As a result of the Water Decade, Shena noted, a broader
international water agenda has been established that goes
beyond universal access to safe drinking water, sanitation
and hygiene.
“The agenda now includes the sustainable use and
development of water resources, increasing and sharing
the available benefits which have significant implications
for every sector of the economy,” she said.
According to environment expert Nataliya Nikiforova,
as a new era of development goals begins under the
Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), it is clear that
water will play a critical role in development.
She said that if managed efficiently and equitably, water
can play a key enabling role in strengthening the resilience
of social, economic and environmental systems in the light
of rapid and unpredictable changes.
Source: IPS

30

Africa Water, Sanitation & Hygiene • January - February 2015

Statistics
Water quality
According to the WHO/
UNICEF Joint Monitoring
Programme for Water Supply
and Sanitation, at least 1.8
billion people world-wide are
estimated to drink water that
is faecally contaminated. An
even greater number drink
water which is delivered through a system without
adequate protection against sanitary hazards. Guidelines
for Drinking-Water Quality recommend that faecal
indicator bacteria (FIB), preferably E. coli or alternatively
thermotolerant coliform (TTC), should not be detectable
in any 100 ml drinking water sample (WHO 2011). An
adequate protection against sanitary hazards can for
example be public taps or standpipes, tube wells or
boreholes, protected dug wells, protected springs and
rainwater collection.
Water, energy and food are inextricably linked
Nowhere is the critical
inter-relationship between
water and energy more
evident than in the AsiaPacific region, home to
61% of the world’s people
and with its population
Photo by Martine Perret expected to reach five
billion by 2050. The Asian
Development Bank (ADB) forecasts a massive rise in
energy consumption in the Asia-Pacific region: from
barely 1/3 of global consumption to 51-56% by 2035.
Global water withdrawals are projected to
increase by some 55% through 2050
Global water withdrawals are projected to increase
by 55% through 2050 due to growing demands from
manufacturing (400%), thermal electricity generation
(140%) and domestic use (130%). The largest proportion
of this growth will occur in countries with developing or
emerging economies and increasing standards of living,
through their greater demand for food, energy and other
goods, the production of which can require significant
quantities of water. Roughly 75% of all industrial water
withdrawals are used for energy production. Groundwater
is the primary source of drinking water worldwide:
globally, the rate of groundwater abstraction is increasing
by 1-2% per year. There is clear evidence that groundwater
supplies are diminishing, with an estimated 20% of the
world’s aquifers being over-exploited, some critically so.
World Water Development Report 2014