Urban water within Africa - Context

Sustainable Development Goals: the follow on from the Millennium
Development Goals includes a new goal focused on clean water and sanitation.

Hello!

Welcome to my first blog (of hopefully many) this term which will be investigating urban water and sanitation with a specific focus on Africa. This is all part of a 3^rd year undergraduate course at UCL titled ‘Water and Development in Africa’.

Over the term I will address key themes surrounding urban water and sanitation including and not limited to:

• Water distribution, availability and access
• Types of water usage
• Piped vs unpiped supplies 
• Reliability of water supplies
• Issues of sanitation and health
• How people pay for water
• Issues of management, infrastructure and governance.

But where is better to start than with a little context:

Water and sanitation is a highly topical subject following the adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in August this year. They replaced the Millennium Development Goals and include a new goal entirely focused on clean water and sanitation. The goal itself is to 'Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all'.  Within this there are a further 8 targets, all of which appear ambitious. For instance 6.1 requires by 2030 'universal and equitable access to safe and affordable drinking water for all'.

These targets need to be ambitious. Studies have shown that urban water supplies deteriorated in East Africa over a 30 year period from 1967-1997. For sites that had piped water in 1967 most received less water per day in 1997 and had more unreliable supplies. For households without piped supplies, the average time spent collecting water in 1997 was more than three times that in 1967 (Thompson et al., 2000). Furthermore, the rates of urban populations enjoying piped water supply at or within the home remains low (Howard et al., 2002).

Recent WHO/UNICEF regional figures give of a more positive light. Northern Africa for instance in 2015 has 95% access to improved drinking water sources in urban areas. Sub-Saharan Africa increased marginally from 83% in 1990 to 87% in 2015. However these figures still seem low when compared to developed regions which enjoy 100% access. Furthermore, Angola, Equatorial Guinea, Chad and Eritrea all have less than 75% urban access to improved sources. For South Sudan this figure is lower at 67% and in Mauritania it is just 58%. In addition, as will be discussed in a later blog availability of water resources whether improved or not does not equate to access to freshwater. Coupled with climate change and population growth, issues surrounding urban water and sanitation appear as real as ever. The number of people living under conditions of water scarcity is projected to double or triple within the next 40 years to between 3 and 7 billion (Taylor, 2009).

Therefore, regardless of the fact that the new SDGs have attracted criticism as part of wider debates, it must be beneficial that water and sanitation are now a documented focus within an agreed inter-governmental set of targets. Only time will tell if improvements can be made.

Next week I will begin by investigating the availability of water in urban areas.

Finally, I would love my blog to be interactive with its readers. Please feel free to comment with points or issues with what I have raised and highlight anything I may have missed. If there is anything or anywhere you think I should research let me know!