The Right to Water: A policy imperative

Water and Poverty

Disparities in access to water and sanitation

Widespread poverty has led to increasing inequalities between water consumption in the developing world and in the industrialised world. Poor people face a triple impediment to access to safe water - lack of availability to safe water, risk of contamination and high costs.

There are also large disparities in access to water and sanitation within countries. In a number of developing countries there is a marked difference between the services available to rural and urban populations. Inequality also exists between residents of the same city. All too often, whilst high-income citizens have enough water to meet their domestic needs, and also to fill their swimming pools and water their lawns, their impoverished neighbours living in slums face severe shortages in clean water for drinking and basic domestic needs.

In poverty stricken urban slums, high population density and the lack of sanitation facilities all contribute to the contamination of existing water sources leading to preventable disease and death. Furthermore, in illegal settlements residents lack the right to demand access to existing water supply networks. Their lack of security of tenure also frequently impedes their willingness to invest any of their own limited resources in sanitary improvements.

Worldwide, in 2004, urban sanitation coverage was over double that found in rural areas The UN estimates that only 39% of the world's rural population have access to adequate sanitation facilities, this means they are forced to defecate in unsanitary places 1 billion urban dwellers and almost 900 million people in rural communities lack access to adequate sanitation There are 27 developing countries where less than 50% of the rural population has access to adequate drinking water In contrast, only 2 countries have urban populations with less then 50% coverage Only 75,000 (17 per cent) of the slum dwellers in Kampala (Uganda) have access to clean piped water Sources: WHO/ UNICEF 2006 JMP 2006 'Meeting the MDG for Water and Sanitation'; UN Habitat 2005 'Addressing the urban water challenge in Kampala'

Poverty impedes access to water, which leads to further impoverishment

In many poor communities, particularly in rural areas, piped water is not available at all. In rural areas, people may have to travel many miles to reach water sources, which are often polluted, subjecting users to the risk of disease. There are additional health risks associated with water collection and carrying, a responsibility often undertaken by women and children. (See section below Water and Women).

Even when municipal services are available, poor people face impediments in accessing safe water and sanitation. Formal municipal water providers usually have the lowest tariffs per unit for water consumption. However, connection charges are often prohibitively expensive for poor people and poor households are often unable to access the credit they need to cover the costs of connection.

In some poor communities in Kenya, connection fees have been found to be equivalent to six months of an average income In another poor community in Uganda, connection fees equalled a full year's wages Source: UNDP Human Development Report 2006, 'Beyond Scarcity'

A lack of available income to pay connection charges forces poor people to obtain their water from alternative sources. These may involve long walks to remote sources or the disproportionately high costs of buying from informal water vendors. Such sources carry an increased risk of disease from contamination as the water is often collected from sources without quality control. Similar impediments also exist in access to sanitation facilities, increasing the risk of contagious disease.

A study by the World Commission on Water for the 21st Century found that poor people in the developing world pay on average 12 times more per litre of water than fellow citizens connected to municipal systems. Although many cities subsidize water services in an attempt to benefit the poor, the neighbourhoods where deprived communities live often grow at a faster rate than the provision of municipal water services. This may leave the poorest sectors of society without access to water, whilst richer members of the community benefit from the subsidised prices.

The poor often end up having to buy water from informal water vendors at many times the subsidized price of piped water: 60 times more in Jakarta, Indonesia; 83 times more in Karachi, Pakistan; and 100 times more in both Port-au-Prince, Haiti and Nouakchot, Mauritania (source: Study by the World Commission on Water for the 21st Century, World Bank).

In Sub-Saharan African cities it is estimated that 10%-30% of low-income households use informal water sources. Water bought from kiosk and tankers can be 10 - 20 times more expensive then that provided directly from the formal network provider. In Lima, Peru, a poor family pays a vendor US $3 per cubic metre of water, more than 20 times what a middle class family pays for water via a house connection. The poor family uses only one-sixth as much water as a middle-class family, but its monthly water bill is three times that of the family connected to a municipal water system In Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire, the poor pay five times more than people connected to the public system; in Cali, Colombia and Tunis, Tunisia, they pay 10 times more; in both Nairobi and Lagos, 11 times more; in Lima, 17 times more; in Guayaquil, Ecuador, 20 times more; in Dhaka, Bangladesh, 25 times more; in Cairo, 40 times more Sources: UNDP Human Development Report, 2006, "Beyond Scarcity"; Study by the World Commission on Water for the 21st Century, World Bank.

Conclusion

Poverty is clearly a major impediment in access to clean water and sanitation. At the same time, lack of access to adequate clean water and sanitation further exacerbate poverty. The need to collect water from far away sources restricts the time that women have for productive activities and contributes to keeping girls out of school. The high costs that poor people bear for access to informal water sources prevents them utilising their scarece resources on other essential items such as food, medicine, school uniform and books. Drinking contaminated water leads to ill health which both inhibits adult's ability to provide for their families, and interrupts children's education.

Ensuring realisation of the right to water and sanitation is therefore a vital facet of poverty reduction and is increasingly being given priority by development organisations. The inequalities and vulnerabilities facing women and poor people raise considerable human rights concerns. It is a fundamental principle of human rights that everyone is entitled to enjoy, on the basis of equality, the necessities for life and dignity. Water policies and programmes clearly need to address these inequalities and inequities. As a result, increased attention is now being given both to taking a human rights approach to development and water programmes and to using the right to water per se as a basis for policy and action.

• Women and Water