Water: Developing Countries

Lord Leigh of Hurley Excerpts

Wednesday 24th January 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Leigh of Hurley (Con)]

My Lords, I would also like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, for raising this important debate, and I welcome his opening remarks.

It is not set out in my register of interests as there is no need for me to do so, but I would like to bring to your Lordships’ attention that I work with WaterAid, mainly fundraising, and have arranged a number of events with the organisation, of which more in a minute or two. This debate is perfectly timed to assist me in that regard. I will not take your Lordships’ time in overpraising WaterAid as I believe that anyone interested in this area will be aware of the amazing and wonderful work it does, largely funded by the great generosity of the UK public, corporations and government.

Clean water is absolutely vital for people to break free from poverty, unlock their potential and change their lives for good. The noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, gave us some helpful statistics on that. We live in a world where one in 10 people are still without access to this basic essential.

The daily task of collecting water dominates the lives of millions, especially those of young girls, who are often responsible for collecting water—in fact, in nearly three-quarters of households in developing countries. Often walking long distances, girls can spend up to six hours a day collecting water, leaving little or no time to go to school, and they often miss out on their education completely. Carried on their heads, the UN Development Programme estimates that the weight of this water to be around 20 kilograms, which is about as heavy as a suitcase.

The lack of access to clean water also has a devastating impact on children’s health. Every year, 289,000 children under the age of five die due to diarrhoea caused by unsafe water and sanitation, which is more than one child every two minutes.

This is not to say that progress has not been made, because it has. The UK Government have done some incredible work, reaching 63 million people with access to water and sanitation between 2010 and 2015. However, more can always be achieved. I was very pleased to see within DfID’s single departmental plan the specific objective at point 4.2 to:

“Support poor people get sustainable access to clean water and sanitation”.


According to the World Health Organization, 844 million people still lack even a basic drinking water service and 263 million people spend more than 30 minutes per round trip to get to water. Despite the UK Government’s commitments, as the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, mentioned, only 2% of the UK’s bilateral aid budget is invested in water and sanitation. In my opinion, this is not nearly enough. Ensuring the availability and sustainable management of water in developing countries is absolutely essential, and the UK Government should commit more resources to this. Investing in access to safe drinking water, sanitation and hygiene is one of the most cost-effective uses of the UK’s aid budget, with every £1 spent returning an average of £4 in productivity improvements. That is an impressive statistic.

To be clear, I believe the UK’s aid budget is by any standard very generous. At 0.7% of the UK’s GDP—some £13 billion—no one could say we are not doing our bit. To put this in perspective, it is more than 10% of the entire budget that we spend on the NHS in England. We want to see this aid spent carefully—hence the suggestion to focus on water, which is something that both the public and Parliament could get behind.

One small point: communities often struggle to keep services working on their own. As a result, water services often stop later down the line. The Independent Commission for Aid Impact has called on DfID to adopt sustainability checks, like USAID and the Dutch development agency do, so that water services installed will still be working even 10 years down the line.

On another matter, I understand that DfID is now working much more closely with the Foreign Office, even sharing Ministers, such as Alistair Burt. Our work helping others should receive greater recognition and we should not be in any way embarrassed about tying it into generating good will towards our country from developing countries so that they can see that flourishing capitalist market economies such as ours can be, should be and are a force for good in the world.

I also want to mention some global political aspects of water sustainability and how HM Government might help. I have been very impressed with the work of EcoPeace Middle East for some time now. Its focal programme, the Good Water Neighbors project, engages 25 communities throughout Israel, Palestine and Jordan in a united effort to rehabilitate the region’s shared water resources and to ensure that all benefit from the amazing new Israeli technologies—and, as the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, said, UK technologies—in water desalination.

Yesterday in this Chamber, the Minister assured us that there is no question of any funds from the UK taxpayer going to support terrorists in prison, but rather that in Gaza,

“We also work through UNICEF on the ground, providing water and sanitation”.—[Official Report, 23/1/18; col. 941.]


May I encourage direct action in this area by HM Government? A recent UN report concluded that the Gaza Strip, in just five more years of further under- development, will be uninhabitable, with water, sanitation and energy issues of prime concern. This has dire implications not only for the Palestinian population of Gaza but for the region as a whole. As Lara Krasnostein, the science and innovation co-ordinator at the British embassy in Israel, has written, there are viable desalination solutions to this. I hope DfID might investigate how it might assist, using the best of UK expertise, to avoid a human and environmental tragedy.

I have a couple of questions for the Minister. Will he set out whether water and sanitation will be included and fully integrated into the Department for International Development’s upcoming thematic vision documents on gender and education? I share the concern of the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, that only 2% of the UK’s bilateral aid is spent on water. Will the Government implement the recommendations of the Independent Commission for Aid Impact, as I mentioned?

Finally, I mentioned that this debate is timely due to my connection with WaterAid. For a number of years, I have run a half-marathon for WaterAid, until last year when I needed a steroid injection in my discs. I had sworn to my family and friends—and doctor—not to do a half-marathon again, but DfID has forced me to change my mind. The offer of matched funding up to £5 million for WaterAid’s Untapped campaign to support its work in Sierra Leone and Mozambique, changing lives forever, has compelled me to reach for my trainers. I am now scheduled to do another half-marathon this very Sunday, with a target of some £50,000. My noble friend the Minister, who is one of the greatest fundraisers in this House for good causes—although over much tougher endurance tests—will be pleased to know that his department’s incentives for people to raise money do work.