Sub-Saharan Africa: Water and Sanitation Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateLord Collins of Highbury
Main Page: Lord Collins of Highbury (Labour - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Collins of Highbury's debates with the Department for International Development
(4 years, 2 months ago)
Lords ChamberI certainly agree with the noble and learned Lord that we must make sure that the information provided to people is correct in order to help them save lives. I mentioned our project with Unilever, which aims to reach 1 billion people with the correct information about how best to protect themselves from Covid.
I congratulate the Government on the Gavi replenishment—a great example of international co-operation delivering on a vital health initiative. WASH is an important ingredient in delivering SDG 6, as well as our objective of universal health coverage. What are the noble Baroness, the Government and DfID doing to ensure that we lead and get other countries to invest in WASH projects?
I am grateful to the noble Lord for bringing up Gavi, which was a great success last week, and which brought the world together to raise over £8.8 billion for essential vaccinations. As he says, improving access to water and sanitation is its own development goal; safe water and sanitation are critical to public health and are necessary elements of universal health coverage. It is also good value for money, and we encourage other donors and indeed the World Bank to continue investment. It estimates that for every £1 spent there are economic benefits worth over £4. Therefore, we target our aid well to vulnerable countries. Between 2011 and 2015, we helped 64.5 million people get access to water and sanitation. We will continue this work and continue to encourage other partners to invest.