Human Development Report 2006

1
Human Development Report 2006

• Overview Beyond Scarcity
• Power, Poverty and the Global Water Crisis

2
The Water Crisis is a Silent Crisis

• Unlike wars and natural disasters, the lack of
  water does not receive media attention.
• Yet it is claiming more lives through disease
  than war claims through guns.
• It reinforces the inequality between the rich and
  poor.
• We need to address this crisis in order to give
  millions of people better health and education,
  and to get them out of poverty.

3
Water for Life, Water for Livelihoods

• This report has two themes--Water for life and
  water for livelihoods.
• The 1st explores the importance of giving people
  access to clean water, removing waste water, and
  providing sanitation.
• What are the consequences of NOT providing these
  services?
• How do you make them universally available?
• The 2nd is concerned with how countries share
  water across national borders, and also within
  each country.

4
Is There a Shortage of Water?

• The report says, no.
• The problem lies in inequalities in power and in
  poverty, not in physical availability.
• Some facts
• 1.1 billion people in developing countries have
  inadequate access to water.
• 2.6 b. people lack basic sanitation.
• This is because of political choices, not lack of
  water.
• In Asia, Latin America, and Africa, some people
  have several hundred liters of water a day, while
  others have less than the 20 liters a day per
  person which is the minimum required to meet
  basic human needs.
• Women and young girls suffer most, because they
  spend hours carrying water from wells to their
  homes.

5
Agriculture, Industry

• Here again, water distribution is unequal.
• Some farmers in India have access to water 24
  hours a day through irrigation pumps that take
  water from aquifers.
• Others only get rainwater.
• The root problem is institutional and political
  (i.e., government decision-making and preference
  given to some over others).

6
Consequences of Water Insecurity

• Lack of water violates basic principles of social
  justice. These include
• Equal citizenship even if a person has the right
  to vote, he/she is not an equal citizen if he/she
  doesnt have access to water
• Social minimum 20 liters a day per person.
• Equality of opportunity a child without access
  to clean water falls sick and cant go to school.
  So he/she doesnt have the same opportunities as
  a rich kid.
• Fair distribution.
• Access to safe water is a fundamental human
  right. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

7
Connection between the MDGs and Water

• Halving the proportion of world population
  without access to safe drinking water and basic
  sanitation by 2015 is part of Goal 7 (Ensure
  environmental sustainability)
• Even if the targets are achieved, there will
  still be over 800 m. people without water and 1.8
  b. people without sanitation in 2015.
• But even so, the date 2015 is importantit will
  be a means of judging the leaders of the world
  who signed the MDG pledge in 2000. Did they
  deliver?

8
Looking back

• A 100 years ago, people in London, New York, and
  Paris were dying of dysentery, diarrhoea, and
  typhoid fever.
• Child death rates were as high then as they are
  in Africa today.
• Reforms in water and sanitation changed this
  picture.
• Water purification was the single most important
  reason for the drop in child mortality in the
  U.S. in the early 20th c.

9
Water Use Some Numbers

• Most of the 1.1 b. people with insufficient
  access to clean water get only 5 liters a day.
• People in Europe use an average of 200 liters a
  day, and in the U.S. 400 liters a day.
• More water is lost through dripping taps than is
  available to the 1.1 b. people without water!
• Unclean water and lack of sanitation kills 1.8
  million children a year (diarrhoea).

10
The Poor Pay More for Water

• The poor not only get less water than the rich,
  but they also pay more for the water that they do
  get.
• In the slums of Jakarta, Manila, and Nairobi,
  people pay 5-10 times more than the rich in those
  cities.
• The poor also spend more on water as a percentage
  of their household income (10 in Nicaragua, as
  against 3 in the UK)

11
The MDGs should be a floor, not a ceiling

• What does this mean?
• Achieving the MDGs should be a minimum, not a
  distant target.
• By present trends, Africa will attain its goal in
  2040 (for clean water) and 2076 (for sanitation).
• The Arab states are 27 years behind their goal.
• This leaves millions of people behind.