pollution from untreated waste water.
r Developing sustainable smallholder agriculture in wetlands. As an alternative to complete reclamation, some wetlands (for example, “dambos” in Africa) can be
adapted for agriculture while maintaining the existing
ecosystem. Only a relatively small number of farmers
would be directly affected, but there would be signifi-
cant benefits associated with maintenance of the envi-
ronmental services of the wetlands.
r Research to increase the productivity of water for food production. More efficient water use can meet the rapid increase in urban and industrial water demands without further environmental impact. Investment costs are
relatively low, at $300–400 billion over 10–15 years, and
expected benefits are high; benefit-cost ratios of 15–20
have been estimated.
Although presented as discrete options, these can also be
components of an integrated approach to water supply,
together with the two options explored in more detail below.
Opportunity 1: Community-managed low-cost water
supply and sanitation
This option covers an integrated package of measures
designed, implemented, and managed with the full involve-
ment of the community. Low-cost water supply would entail
the provision of standpipes and low-cost sanitation would
comprise good-quality latrines in rural areas and low-cost sewerage in urban areas (septic tanks or shallow, small-bore
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Table 8.1. Number of people, in millions, to whom access must be extended by 2015 in order to meet MDG targets
Number of people to
Number of people to
gain access to
gain access to
improved water supply
improved sanitation
by 2015
by 2015
Regions/Country
categories
Urban Rural
Total
Urban Rural
Total
SSA
175
184
359
178
185
363
Middlle East and
104
30
134
105
34
140
North Africa
South Asia
243
201
444
263
451
714
East Asia and
290
174
465
330
376
705
Pacific
Latin America
121
20
141
132
29
161
and Caribbean
CEE/CIS and
27
0
27
24
0
Baltic States
Total
961
609
1,570
1,032
1,076
2,108
Source: UN Task Force on Water and Sanitation (2003, 47).
sewerage plus low-cost treatment). These would be supple-
mented by hygiene education.
At the end of the twentieth century, it was estimated that 1.1 billion people did not have access to a safe water supply, and 2.4 billion people were not served by basic sanitation.
One of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) is to
halve these numbers by 2015, which means not only halv-
ing the present numbers, but also catering for a significant population increase.
To achieve this goal, just over 1.5 billion extra peo-
ple would have to be supplied with safe water, about 60%
of them in urban communities. In the case of sanitation,
the figure is 2.1 billion people, this time split quite evenly
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136 How to Spend $50 Billion to Make the World a Better Place Table 8.2. Improved versus non-improved water supply and sanitation
Improved
Non-improved
Water
• Household connection • Unprotected well
supply
• Public standpipe
• Unprotected spring
• Borehole
• Vendor-provided water
• Protected dug well
• Bottled water a
• Protected spring water
• Tanker-truck provided
• Rainwater collection
Sanitation
• Connection to a public • Service or bucket
sewer
latrines b
• Connection to a septic
• Public latrines
system
• Latrines with open pit
• Pour-flush latrine
• Simple pit latrine
• Ventilated improved pit
latrine
a Considered as ‘non-improved’ because of quantity rather than quality of supplied water.
b Latrines from where excreta are manually removed.
Source: UNWWDR (2003, 113).
between urban and rural dwellers. The UN World Water
Development Report (2003) concluded that there was a
funding gap of between $110 billion and $180 billion which had to be bridged to achieve the targets.
Conventionally, such funding shortfalls lead to calls for
increased international aid. However, over 80% of water
infrastructure investment at present comes from domestic
(largely public) funding, and it is reasonable to assume that this will continue to be the case. Since about half of those without proper sanitation live in China and India – both
with high and sustained rates of economic growth – funding in this case will very likely become available domestically.
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The Water Challenge
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There are still, however, countries with about 30% of
the world’s population that are making little or no progress towards the MDGs for water and sanitation. The great
majority of these are in Africa, and there is clearly a case for targeting aid and other forms of external funding towards
them.
This money could provide the necessary infrastructure,
but past experience shows that this can be poorly correlated with the level of service provided. In many cases, this has been because projects have been donor-driven, top-down,
and technology focused, and have failed to involve the local community.
Not only must future projects be community managed,
but they must also be integrated. Analysis shows that water supply must be combined with basic sanitation and hygiene
awareness campaigns if key health benefits are to be real-
ized. Currently, improved sanitation on average accounts
for only about 20% of the total spending on water infras-
tructure in developing countries, and there is an obvious
case for this to be increased.
An economic analysis of a progr
am to meet the MDGs
shows the total investment and recurrent costs of sanita-
tion provision as $9.3 billion and that for water supply as $1.8 billion, a total of $11.1 billion. The benefits in terms of sanitation alone amount to over $54 billion: a benefit-cost ratio of nearly 5. Using a 5% discount rate, the project overall has a Net Present Value (NPV) of $400 billion. The major part of the benefit is accounted for by time gained: fewer days off work and school and less time spent nursing sick babies.
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138 How to Spend $50 Billion to Make the World a Better Place Halving the present numbers of people with water and
sanitation needs would still leave large numbers unserved: 550 million people without a safe water supply and
1.2 billion with no access to basic sanitation. A simple
extrapolation of the costs and benefits of meeting the MDGs suggests that the NPV of providing services to everyone
increases to $600 billion. In practice, of course, things are not that simple, and implementing effective water infrastructure projects in countries which are financially unstable or engaged in civil conflict would be extremely difficult.
Opportunity 2: Small-scale water technology
for livelihoods
The second option is the exploitation of appropriate low-
cost, small-scale technologies that individual farmers can use to improve agricultural productivity. This is applicable to 800 million rural poor people, plus some peri-urban dwellers who depend on farming for a living. To make a
real difference, these technologies have to be provided in a supportive environment, where micro-credit, training, and
support are available.
Recently, there has been increased focus on the provi-
sion of a range of water technologies to smallholders. These include low-cost electric or diesel pumps, a number of manual irrigation systems, and techniques for water harvest-
ing. Such technologies offer a major opportunity to reduce poverty in rural areas.
Drip irrigation is one example of the technologies used.
This can give significant yield increases (20–70%) while
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The Water Challenge
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using less water than traditional methods. Previously the
preserve of commercial farmers, the availability of cheap, small-scale equipment has made this an option also for
smallholders. For example, the so-called “Pepsee” system
in India costs only $93 for equipment to irrigate an acre
of cotton. This gives yields almost twice as high as non-
adopters, and comparable to those from conventional drip
irrigation systems costing twice as much.
Another technology – the manual treadle pump to lift
water from ponds and wells – is improving livelihoods in
the poorest parts of Southern Asia. Costing only $12–30,
these pumps have been found to increase farmers’ income
by an average of $100 a year. Assuming a typical cost of
$20 for a pump, replaced every three years, the Net Present Value for an adopter is $1,900. The total NPV for the 11/2
million current users is $2.8 billion, and there are believed to be 10 million potential users in the region in total.
Small-scale rainwater harvesting technologies (to con-
serve rainfall in the field or by storage) have been actively promoted by NGOs and have been a conspicuous success,
particularly in parts of India. In the Gujarat region, tens of thousands of small check dams have already been built. It is estimated that the value of the main monsoon crop across
the whole of India could be increased from about $36–54
billion to $180 billion by building two million small check dams at a total cost of $7 billion.
Overall, some 100 million farming families in Asia and
Africa could benefit by an average of $100 per year by
using small-scale water technology. This yields an NPV of
$200 billion in direct benefits. Indirect effects on the overall
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140 How to Spend $50 Billion to Make the World a Better Place economy could increase this significantly. Taking the multiplier effect into account, an investment of $100 billion over the MDG timescale would give benefits of $700 billion; a
benefit-cost ratio of 7.
Conclusions
The two opportunities discussed above (and the others for
which too little information is available to do a proper analysis) rely not just on delivering appropriate technologies, but doing so in an integrated way that focuses on end results.
Providing access to clean water and basic sanitation, plus options to improve the productivity of small-scale farming, would have large welfare benefits and help to lift people out of poverty.
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THE WATER CHALLENGE
OPPONENTS’ VIEWS
Frank Rijsberman’s paper on the challenge of water and
sanitation provision attracts considerable agreement from
the authors of the two opponent papers. John Boland, in
particular, is sympathetic to most of the analysis, although he has some doubts about the ease of implementation of
the proposals. Henry Vaux, although accepting many of
the arguments put forward, has one point of substantial
disagreement: He believes that the water challenge is largely defined by scarcity, whereas Rijsberman takes the view that is primarily an issue of fair and effective access.
Vaux agrees with the challenge definition as provision
of water and sanitation to the unserved. However, he con-
siders the Millennium Development Goal as an unrealis-
tic basis for quantitative analysis. To halve the numbers of unserved by 2015 implies, for example, bringing sanitation to 825,000 unserved people each day from now until 2015.
In his words, this does not seem “physically, institutionally, or economically attainable.” By extension, the benefits of the proposals would be lower.
He emphasizes the critical point that interventions must
be made in combination, and should link appropriate
141
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142 How to Spend $50 Billion to Make the World a Better Place technology with effective institutions. The neglect of institutional problems has in the past led to the failure of many schemes. He also concurs with the point that water and sanitation are necessary but not sufficient for economic growth to occur.
Vaux focuses his discussion on his view that scarcity is
the primary issue that determines the water challenge. This scarcity is exacerbated by the general assumption that there are certain fundamental rights to water (a theme which
Boland also takes up). The lack of water, rather than just its fair distribution, will affect rich and poor alike, and Vaux sees three key problems:
r Sustainable groundwater. Groundwater accounts for
about one-third of the world’s usable water
supply, but
is threatened by overuse without allowing for regener-
ation. Water tables are falling virtually everywhere, but
the problem is particularly serious in China and India.
This depletion is often addressed by building additional
surface water storage, but experience shows that this is
only a temporary respite in the absence of proper con-
trols over extraction.
r Water quality is also a major determinant of availabil-
ity. Water that is not fit for a particular use is effectively unavailable. Although surface water quality in Europe
and North America has been improving, in other parts
of the world there has been a continual decline. Unre-
stricted land use and contamination by natural and syn-
thetic chemicals are two aspects, and poorer countries
have the fewest resources to tackle this.
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The Water Challenge
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r Agriculture is the major consumer of water, and increas-
ing demands will be made on the supply as the world’s
population continues to grow. Irrigated agriculture has
been criticized, but it is vital for feeding the world and also is a big factor in reducing rural poverty. Undoubt-edly irrigation will increase, but there will come a point in water availability (generally about 1,500 cubic metres
of water per head per year) below which a country can-
not produce all its food needs. The deficit is then made
up by imports, effectively shifting the water burden else-
where. An increased population will therefore intensify
water scarcity in countries that currently have a surplus, as well as in those that are already in deficit.
Vaux’s conclusion is that the water challenge is even more formidable than Rijsberman suggests in the challenge
paper.
John Boland takes a very different approach in his oppo-
sition paper. He fully agrees that the water and sanitation problem is a serious one that must be addressed. He sees
the costs of poor management as unacceptable, going far
beyond economic impacts to encompass significant health
impacts, poverty, and major environmental degradation.
This makes it important to exploit all promising opportunities, but difficult to evaluate their likely outcome.
A central point to Boland’s discussion is the nature of
water: whether it is a public good (in which case it should be freely available to all) or a market good (and thus be allocated via normal market forces). He concludes that water
supply (as distinct from water in the environment) is a
How to Spend $50 Billion to Make the World a Better Place Page 15