FN-bureauet IRIN sammenholder fine statistikker med den barske virkelighed ude i u-landene, hvor stribevis af projekter for rent drikkevand og ordentlige sanitære forhold går i stå eller falder sammen midt i fattigdommen – er det rent bogstaveligt at hælde penge ud i kloakken….
STOCKHOLM, 17 September 2013 (IRIN): The success in achieving the Millennium Development Goals’ (MDGs = 2015 Målene) water target and massive growth in water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) programmes have masked a little-discussed secret: WASH interventions frequently fail.
Rather than focusing on what is almost literally pouring money down the drain (kloakken), donor reports and NGO websites prefer instead to boast of the numbers of water pumps drilled (boret) or toilets installed.
“You do not take photos at a funeral,” said Dutch water expert George De Gooijer, who is based at the Netherlands’ embassy in Benin.
“The lack of a link between results on the ground and the proposals is the one that needs to be solved,” added he.
In 2012, an audit by the European Union (EU) sought to make that link between its officially completed WASH projects in sub-Saharan Africa and the reality on the ground – but found that more than half of the drinking water schemes surveyed had failed to deliver – se http://www.source.irc.nl/page/74785
“Negligible positive outcomes”
A key failure was in the management (vedligeholdelse) of the projects rather than the installation of the equipment.
Overall EU spending on water and sanitation projects in sub-Saharan Africa, from 2001 to 2010, amounted to more than one billion euros (7,5 milliarder DKR) – and much of it is likely to have failed to produce the intended outcomes.
Hundreds of short-term WASH projects were implemented in the aftermath of the 2010 earthquake in Haiti – rapid construction schemes that have had little long-term impact, says Sasha Kramer, an ecologist and co-founder of the sanitation NGO Sustainable Organic Integrated Livelihoods.
“This approach to sanitation interventions results in massive spending in the sector, impressive implementation statistics for NGOs and negligible positive outcomes for community beneficiaries,” Kramer said.
The UN in Haiti is actually blamed by many analysts for causing the world’s worst recent outbreak of (den vandbårne sygdom) cholera, which killed more than 8.000 people and infected at least 600.000.
This year, the UK’s Independent Commission for Aid Impact found that a government water project in Sudan’s Darfur region had created “aid dependency” with little focus on creating a durable solution.
“A failing chapter in human development”
The long list of failures is all the more painful because water and sanitation are universally recognized as critically important.
Low-quality water and sanitation systems create acute vulnerabilities during natural disasters.
When earthquakes and floods strike, it is frequently the subsequent population movements, water-source contamination (forurening) and unsanitary conditions that create the most dangers to human life.
Sixty percent of the world’s population has dysfunctional (dårligt fungerende) or non-existent sanitation, says Arno Rosemarin, a researcher at the Stockholm Environment Institute.
There is “no other global statistic leading to high risk that comes close to this one,” he said.
Speaking at this month’s World Water Week in Sweden, he said WASH – particularly sanitation – was “a failing chapter in human development.”
Humanitarian accounting
Læs videre på
http://www.irinnews.org/report/98770/analysis-sanitizing-the-truth-when-wash-fails
Se også om vand og sanitet frem mod 2030 på
http://www.irinnews.org/report/98702/analysis-debating-the-best-way-to-improve-water-and-sanitation-post-mdgs
