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Dirty water poses a greater threat to human life worldwide
By Shamim Islam
Posted: May 19, 2006
In the next 24 hours diarrhoea caused by unclean water and poor sanitation will claim the lives of 4,000
children. Dirty water poses a greater threat to human life than war or terrorism. Yet it barely registers on
the radar of public debate in rich countries.
At any one time, close to half the population of the developing world is suffering from water-related
diseases.
These rob people of their health, destroy their livelihoods, and undermine education potential. The
statistics behind the crisis make for grim reading. In the midst of an increasingly prosperous global
economy, 2.6 billion people still have no access to even the most rudimentary latrine. Over one billion
have no source of drinking water.
In Britain, the average person uses 160 litres of clean water each day. In rural Mozambique or Ethiopia,
people use what women and young girls can carry back from rivers and lakes: around 5-10 litres a day
for each person.
The global sanitation gap is even more overwhelming. The recent film The Constant Gardener adapted
from the novel by John le Carré has gone some way to raise public awareness of the true situation.
The slum of Kibera features on screen in glorious Technicolor for all to see – with a population of
750,000 it is one of the largest informal settlements in Africa and accounts for one-quarter of people
living in Nairobi; over 90 percent of these people lack access to a latrine.
These are the types of images which the public need to be informed of and exposed to. To be made
truly aware that these are problems which are not going away and cannot be solved by sporadic
waves of charitable donations.
Kibera is a microcosm of what happens across the developing world.
Rapid urbanisation and a crumbling water and sanitation infrastructure in cities like Jakarta, Manila
and Lagos have left millions of poor people in overcrowded slums facing a constant threat from water
infected with human excrement.
It is a fact that in Kibera in Nairobi, one of the poorest African slums, one must pay three times more for
water than in Manhattan or London – two of the most expensive cities in the world in which to live.
Meeting the UN's millennium development goal of halving the proportion of the world without access to
clean water would cost $4bn a year for 10 years. That amount represents just a month's spending on
bottled mineral water in Europe and the US. For less than people in rich countries now spend on a
designer product that produces no tangible health gains, we would roll back one of the main causes of
preventable childhood death.
And for every $1 invested, another $3-$4 would be generated through savings on health spending and
increased productivity. So why have rich countries been cutting aid to water and sanitation for the last
five years?
Water is not just a commodity. It is a source of life, dignity and equality of opportunity. That is why
human need, regardless of ability to pay, must be the guiding regulatory principle, and why
governments bear ultimate responsibility for provision
### ### ###
Shamim Islam is a graduate of the University of Birmingham with a BA in English Literature and
French. Currently, he lives in New York where he is an intern at the Citygroup.
By Shamim Islam
Posted: May 19, 2006
In the next 24 hours diarrhoea caused by unclean water and poor sanitation will claim the lives of 4,000
children. Dirty water poses a greater threat to human life than war or terrorism. Yet it barely registers on
the radar of public debate in rich countries.
At any one time, close to half the population of the developing world is suffering from water-related
diseases.
These rob people of their health, destroy their livelihoods, and undermine education potential. The
statistics behind the crisis make for grim reading. In the midst of an increasingly prosperous global
economy, 2.6 billion people still have no access to even the most rudimentary latrine. Over one billion
have no source of drinking water.
In Britain, the average person uses 160 litres of clean water each day. In rural Mozambique or Ethiopia,
people use what women and young girls can carry back from rivers and lakes: around 5-10 litres a day
for each person.
The global sanitation gap is even more overwhelming. The recent film The Constant Gardener adapted
from the novel by John le Carré has gone some way to raise public awareness of the true situation.
The slum of Kibera features on screen in glorious Technicolor for all to see – with a population of
750,000 it is one of the largest informal settlements in Africa and accounts for one-quarter of people
living in Nairobi; over 90 percent of these people lack access to a latrine.
These are the types of images which the public need to be informed of and exposed to. To be made
truly aware that these are problems which are not going away and cannot be solved by sporadic
waves of charitable donations.
Kibera is a microcosm of what happens across the developing world.
Rapid urbanisation and a crumbling water and sanitation infrastructure in cities like Jakarta, Manila
and Lagos have left millions of poor people in overcrowded slums facing a constant threat from water
infected with human excrement.
It is a fact that in Kibera in Nairobi, one of the poorest African slums, one must pay three times more for
water than in Manhattan or London – two of the most expensive cities in the world in which to live.
Meeting the UN's millennium development goal of halving the proportion of the world without access to
clean water would cost $4bn a year for 10 years. That amount represents just a month's spending on
bottled mineral water in Europe and the US. For less than people in rich countries now spend on a
designer product that produces no tangible health gains, we would roll back one of the main causes of
preventable childhood death.
And for every $1 invested, another $3-$4 would be generated through savings on health spending and
increased productivity. So why have rich countries been cutting aid to water and sanitation for the last
five years?
Water is not just a commodity. It is a source of life, dignity and equality of opportunity. That is why
human need, regardless of ability to pay, must be the guiding regulatory principle, and why
governments bear ultimate responsibility for provision
### ### ###
Shamim Islam is a graduate of the University of Birmingham with a BA in English Literature and
French. Currently, he lives in New York where he is an intern at the Citygroup.
| (c) 2006 New Criterion Foundation, London |
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