2015 målet om at skaffe rent vand og toiletter til halvdelen af afrikanerne “er århundreder væk”
LONDON, 18 November 2011 (IRIN): It will take two centuries for sub-Saharan Africa to meet the Millennium Development Goal (2015 Målene) to reduce by half the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation, according to the NGO WaterAid.
Consequently, WaterAid calls on national leaders to commit 3,5 percent of their countries annual budget to the sector.
Water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) are being sidelined as govern-ments concentrate on health and education, says the WaterAid report.
Meanwhile, people’s lack of access to clean water and basic sanitation services is holding back social and economic development in the region, costing around 5 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) every year.
Loss higher than development aid
Inadequate WASH services cost sub-Saharan Africa more than the whole continent receives in development aid – 47,6 billion US dollar in 2009 – according to WaterAid.
The World Health Organization (WHO) estimated the financial impact of inadequate WASH facilities by looking at the health issues linked to poor hygiene, child mortality, waterborne tropical diseases, the time people spend collecting water; and reductions in educational achievement due to illness and girls’ attendance rates at schools.
– Diarrhoea, 90 percent of which is attributable to inadequate sanitation and dirty water, is the single biggest killer of children in Africa, and yet sanitation targets are off-track, Tom Slaymaker, one of the report’s authors, told IRIN.
Every day, 2.000 children die from diarrhoea in sub-Saharan Africa. Four out of 10 people do not have access to safe water, while seven out of 10 do not have appropriate sanitation facilities.
The disparity between rich and poor is stark. Poor people in sub-Saharan Africa are more than 15 times more likely to practice open defecation (forrette deres nødtørft i det fri) due to inadequate or poorly maintained toilets.
– Unless this changes, we will not see educational progress and it will hold back progress on child health. If you look at development in industrialized countries, sanitation has been key to enabling economic growth and achieving acceptable living standards, said Slaymaker.
Ministries not powerful
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