Water: Developing Countries

Earl of Sandwich Excerpts

Wednesday 24th January 2018 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Sandwich (CB)]

My Lords, I am also delighted to join my noble friend in this debate on one of the most critical development goals which has an impact on all human existence. I expected him to draw on his wide knowledge of agriculture here and abroad, and indeed he has, including a lot of technical advice, which we should be grateful for.

Clean water is not only fundamental to life, it is the foundation of any sustainable livelihood. It touches every vital human activity. I am surprised it is not designated higher in the batting order than SDG 6. In the drought of 1976, most of us—or some of us—remember the threat posed by one dry season, but it was only one. Millions in sub-Saharan Africa experience drought year after year and have to learn how to contain and save water. In the Sahel, people rely for months on seasonal lakes and are dependent on dry land crops such as millet and sorghum. With luck, they can afford a pump to grow a cash crop such as tomatoes or onions.

On top of this scene has come climate change and rising temperatures. We in the UK and the USA have a surplus of water. Again, we can have hardly an inkling of what higher temperatures can mean to so many people overseas. It is no use saying that people are acclimatised there: with climate change, that is exactly what they are not because it hits hardest those who are already hit. Mitigation in the form of emissions targets, for example, is not primarily their responsibility but ours. There is no doubt that poverty of resources hits sub-Saharan Africa hardest of all. We have already heard a lot of helpful statistics but I ask noble Lords to imagine the following: over a third of schools worldwide have no access to clean water; over half of schools in sub-Saharan Africa have no access to clean water; and 42% of healthcare facilities in sub-Saharan Africa do not have access to clean water. All this leads to migration out of Africa—a subject which we will need to study very closely in the future.

I have been lucky to travel throughout Africa and Asia on behalf of Christian Aid and other aid agencies. The Churches have had an enormous impact in this sector. Still fresh in my mind are the wells dug by the Catholic Church among the Dogon community in Mali and similar projects of the Evangelical and Protestant Churches elsewhere in Africa.

I noted that Jeremy Lefroy MP recently mentioned a Protestant Church water programme in Tanzania managed by his wife. The beneficial effects of these projects are startling. As an executive committee member of the IPU, I urge other parliamentarians to sign up for these visits to see that for themselves. However, some projects in sub-Saharan Africa do not work. The pumps may break down and there is no maintenance or follow-up. Not long ago, the Minister may remember that I served on an EU sub-committee under the chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Tugendhat, which discussed EU-supported water and sanitation projects. The evidence was that only about half of the projects audited were sustainable, or had the potential for sustainability. Does the Minister know what the equivalent figure is for DfID projects?

A country I visit regularly is Nepal, where over half the population still have no access to proper sanitation, as we have heard. Every year, 600 children under five die from diarrhoeal diseases caused by dirty water and poor sanitation. This accounts for a third of all child deaths overall in Nepal, which presents a tremendous challenge for the new Government there.

The noble Lord, Lord McColl, failed to mention that I stood beside him on the memorable women’s march and rally in support of the famous WASH campaign. The campaign was supported by WaterAid, which offers the following two examples of its work in Nepal. In a remote village, 14 year-old Radha crouches and waits for a friend to bring her water. She is not allowed to touch anyone. For the seven days of her menstruation, she is forbidden to collect water as she is seen as “unclean” and some believe that she is possessed by a spirit. Projects that deliver safe water and sanitation to remote communities need to address such taboos through education and the provision of safe, private toilets so that every girl has the chance to grow up and achieve her ambitions. Dambar, aged 67, lives high on a terraced hill. She used to walk long distances four times a day to fetch water for her family. One day she slipped and broke both her hands. Now her daughter-in-law collects the water but is worried that the same thing might happen to her on these perilous journeys. Women and girls can spend up to six hours a day collecting water in these conditions—a task that not only puts them at risk but leaves them with little time to attend school or work. This is an important point: so much of daily life is shortened by such huge domestic burdens.

My noble friend Lord Slim, who served with the Gurkhas for years, points out that an additional cost of providing sanitation in the hills is that of preventing streams contaminating villages further down the valley. I have visited the Gurkha Welfare Trust, which has long supported the hill communities in which the Gurkha veterans live. Its rural water and sanitation programme brings safe drinking water and hygiene to villages throughout Nepal, while its school programme undertakes to build and repair schools as part of its commitment to develop rural educational facilities. The Minister will know that DfID is also behind part of this programme, which I am hoping to visit again this year.

I am pleased that the CDC sent us a briefing for this debate, and especially that it has announced support for feasibility studies for energy and water-saving measures. These studies, it says, are to be followed by low-cost loans to achieve the planned resource efficiency gains. I am absolutely with my noble friend Lord Cameron when he says that community projects are becoming much more of a priority. We will have to see how the considerably larger CDC, now alongside DfID, can adapt its programmes to achieve sustainability and to meet the needs of the very poor, which it has undertaken to do. MPs should also go out and see what they are doing.

I mentioned earlier that water deserves a higher priority among the SDGs. Given the relationship between access to water and sanitation and education, health and gender equality, will the Minister confirm that water and sanitation will be included and fully integrated into the department’s upcoming thematic vision documents on those other SDGs?

Given that less than 2% of the UK’s bilateral ODA is invested in water and sanitation, will the Government make plans to increase their bilateral aid budget on water and sanitation to bring the UK in line with other countries? Some countries have a very much higher percentage.

I am an admirer of the work of the Independent Commission for Aid Impact. Will the Government be implementing the ICAI’s recommendations, including putting in place the necessary sustainability checks to ensure that water services are still working 10 years down the line?

Finally, as a global leader in this sector, will the Government use their influence to raise what they call their global ambition on the availability of water in multilateral institutions, and in particular at the upcoming high-level political forum in July?