International Development: Sanitation and Water

Lord Bishop of Bath and Wells Excerpts

Monday 19th March 2012 Lords Chamber

Asked By

[The Lord Bishop of Bath and Wells]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to enhance access to proper sanitation and safe water in developing countries.

[The Lord Bishop of Bath and Wells]

My Lords, I am grateful for the opportunity to open this debate, and I thank noble Lords who are willing to take part after what has been a full day.

There will no doubt be some amusement that a contribution such as this is being made by the Bishop of Bath and Wells—the name involves two receptacles intimately associated with water. However, I am not the first holder of this office to be so concerned. Bishop Bekynton is remembered and commemorated for his contribution to the health and welfare of the citizens of Wells during the 15th century. Bekynton made a grant to construct the conduit by which the city would receive its water supply from the Well of St. Andrew in the grounds of the bishop’s palace. However, the condition upon which such benefaction was made was that the citizens and burgesses bound themselves in return to visit once every year the spot in the cathedral where Bekynton was to be interred and there pray for his soul, for which the same prelate granted them an indulgence of 40 days from purgatory. Bekynton is still commemorated, and the people of Wells remain healthy, although regrettably the water from the well is no longer safe to drink, and indulgences are no longer a part of my privilege as the Bishop of Bath and Wells.

In opening this debate, I declare an interest as an ambassador for WaterAid. More widely, in my time as director of an international mission and development agency, I have seen the effect that the provision of clean water and sanitation has, not only on individuals and communities but upon economies, healthcare and education.

Today’s debate has been called as a response to the sanitation and water crises in the developing world, and it could not be more timely. Not only will it be World Water Day on Thursday, but we are just one month away from a vital meeting to push forward progress on tackling the water and sanitation crisis—the Sanitation and Water for All high-level meeting.

Water and sanitation poverty is one of the greatest and most neglected crises in international development. It is undermining the collective efforts of the international community to achieve the millennium development goals. Diarrhoeal disease is, according to the World Health Organisation, the biggest killer of children in Africa. Ninety per cent of cases are caused by the lack of access to clean water and sanitation. Diarrhoea causes more child deaths than AIDS, malaria and TB combined and, as the latest United Nations report on water and sanitation indicates, the majority of these child deaths are in south Asia.

It is entirely unacceptable in the 21st century that international development efforts are still held back because of a lack of access to clean water and sanitation. Regrettably, the United Kingdom’s record on development is being weakened by the lack of concerted international action on water and sanitation. Put simply, there can be only limited benefits from focusing on giving children life-saving medicines without ensuring that the water with which they drink those pills is safe and free from human faecal matter.

Likewise, the international community’s emphasis on girls going to school is to be welcomed. However, when so many are held back from attending school by the hours spent fetching water, our collective efforts and financial contributions are being undermined. If girls are to stay in school when they reach menstrual age, it is essential that there are adequate toilet facilities when they get to school.

As our own history of public health shows, safe water and sanitation are essential not only for reducing the preventable deaths of young children but are essential services critical to public health, welfare and the productivity of all. The British Medical Association voted the commission of the London sewerage system as the most important breakthrough ever in public health—more important than penicillin or vaccines.

However, the benefits go beyond health. Diarrhoea is believed to cost Africa up to 5 per cent of its gross domestic product annually. The United Nations estimates that, on average, $1 spent on water and sanitation generates $8 in return. Earlier this month, the United Nations announced that the millennium development goal target for water had been met, five years ahead of schedule. Two billion more people now have access to water than in 1990. That is a welcome and significant achievement, and it demonstrates what can be done when the willingness is there. It shows that aid can and does work. Success in meeting the water millennium development goal target is self-evidently transformative. It happens when political leadership is combined with sustained investment.

Sadly, those gains have not been made equally across the world. I do not need to remind your Lordships that water, sanitation and hygiene are recognised by the United Nations as human rights fundamental to life and dignity, yet 780 million people are still without access, the majority of them are the poorest in society and four in 10 live in sub-Saharan Africa. Sustainability is essential. Access to safe water needs to be complemented with access to sanitation. Without adequate toilets, human waste will pollute water sources.

Both former and present Governments have good reason to point to our successes in delivering water to the poorest people and the saving of lives. Eight of the top 10 recipients of aid for water provided by the UK are on track to meet the millennium development goals or have already met them. Having met the water target, we need to complement our efforts on water by making and keeping it safe and clean. That requires investment in sanitation. That is particularly critical at a time of rapid urbanisation when the growth of the world's population is largely in urban slums. On current estimates, more than 500 million people will suffer through the failure to meet the sanitation millennium development goal. It is said that in Africa universal access to sanitation is still more than 250 years away.

The Secretary of State is to be commended for leading the world through his commitment to attend the Sanitation and Water for All partnership high-level meeting in Washington next month. He was the first donor Minister to do so, and our hopes are high for both attendance and outcomes from that crucial meeting. Our Government are further to be commended for their commitment to 0.7 per cent of annual income to be spent on aid, but overall, aid for water and sanitation has declined in proportion to the aid for other sectors. Where it stood at more than 8 per cent of total aid in the mid-1990s, it has now fallen to below 5.5 per cent. Globally, there is a huge shortfall in funding for the crisis.

I regret that the picture is less healthy when we look at the United Kingdom’s contribution. The UK’s bilateral aid to the sector was less than 2 per cent of our total aid in 2010, and the proportion of UK bilateral aid that goes to water and sanitation programmes is less than 50 per cent of the average reported by other donors. Although the Secretary of State himself is showing great personal leadership on the issue, the UK’s financial contribution on water and sanitation is not keeping pace with other donors and, more importantly, not rising to the scale of the crisis.

Is there an imbalance here that needs to be corrected? There is no sense in a government strategy which invests in girls’ education without investing in the removal of barriers to their attendance. Surely the Government must consider the drawbacks of investing resources in medicine without ensuring that the water taken with those medicines is clean and free from human faecal matter. DfID’s water, sanitation and hygiene programme is fantastic value for money, but we must step up the volume in line with the quality of our aid if we want results across health, women's livelihoods, education and nutrition.

I dare to hope that this debate today may have something of the same effect on the world’s population, to its benefit, as Bishop Bekynton did for the people of Wells in the 15th century. While I cannot offer indulgences, I crave your Lordships’ in support of the Question on enhancing access to proper sanitation and safe water in developing countries.