July 27, 2009
New toolkit helps civil society engage in reform of urban water services
WaterAid has published a
new toolkit,
Our water, our waste, our town,
designed to help develop informed and proactive civil society engagement in the reform of urban water and sanitation services.
The voice of the urban poor must be heard if the water and sanitation crisis is going to be addressed in developing countries.
Over the next 30 years, developing countries are predicted to triple
their population size and account for 80% of the world’s urban
population - the majority of whom will live in impoverished slums
without access to basic services.
"In the developing world, many urban areas are unplanned, densely
populated and unserved by even the most basic water and sanitation
infrastructure," explained Timeyin Uwejamomere, WaterAid policy officer.
"Families live surrounded by raw sewage, drink unsafe water from
polluted sources, or pay dearly for water from illegal vendors. As a
result, water-related diseases such as cholera, typhoid and dysentery
run rife.”
Poor people
must be given the tools to demand that governments and local providers give
them access to these basic human rights.
Timeyin Uwejamomere, Policy Officer, WaterAid
These demographic changes are undermining international development
goals and leading to water and sanitation poverty across the developing
world.
"Lack of access to water and sanitation is proving a major health
crisis and is a key contributor to child mortality – which in slums can
be up to twice rural figures. Globally, 4,000 children die every day
from preventable diseases caused by a lack of safe water and
sanitation; an increasing number of whom live in slums.”, continued Uwejamomere.
Chronic water and sanitation shortages in slums are being
exacerbated by local utilities that cherry pick those who get served,
based on wealth and geographic considerations – rather than on need.
This results in the poorest people in developing countries being denied
basic services and a way out of poverty.
With this in mind, WaterAid's new global urban toolkit – designed to
provide tools to develop informed and proactive citizen engagement -
was officially launched in Nepal last week.
WaterAid stresses the importance of the role civil society
organizations can play in improving access to basic facilities such as
drinking water and toilets.
Uwejamomere concluded:
"Water and sanitation are integral to urban development. Poor people
must be given the tools to demand that governments and local providers give
them access to these basic human rights."
"We have seen time and time again that when
poor people are empowered they can monitor service providers, and begin
to influence policymakers to demand real and lasting change."
Copies of the toolkit can be downloaded from www.wateraid.org/urbanreform.
