Water, Sanitation and Hygiene: Sustainable Development

Debate between Pauline Latham and Sarah Champion

Tuesday 17th October 2023 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Pauline Latham (in the Chair)]

Thirteen years!

[Sarah Champion]

Thirteen years—let me correct myself. You probably know more about this issue than any of us in the Chamber, so I am grateful that you are here today.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Hendon (Dr Offord) on securing the debate. I have been reminded of our trip to Uganda together many years ago; I know that his absolute passion for low and middle-income countries has stemmed from that. He has been a true champion of the cause ever since, and I thank him for that.

Access to clean water, sanitation and hygiene is one of the most basic human needs and is fundamental for development. The importance of global action in this area is set out in the UN sustainable development goal 6, which is about working towards clean water and sanitation for all. The International Development Committee, which I chair, held an evidence session on this topic—known by its acronym WASH—in March this year. We heard about the devastating impact of the lack of access to WASH on the world’s poorest people and the most marginalised groups. It is crucial that we continue to shed light on this problem, which can have devastating impacts on those living in lower-income countries across the world.

According to a joint report from the World Health Organisation and UNICEF, in 2022 2.2 billion people lacked access to safely managed drinking water, 2 billion people lacked access to basic hygiene services and 3.5 billion people still lacked access to safely managed sanitation. It is hard to comprehend the scale of those figures or the cost of that inaction. A lack of access to clean water, sanitation and hygiene has serious consequences for health and wellbeing. It increases the risk of diseases such as cholera, dysentery, typhoid and polio.

According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a lack of access to WASH contributes globally each year to 3 million cases of cholera, resulting in an estimated 95,000 cholera deaths. In recent days, Zimbabwe has banned large gatherings as the threat of a cholera outbreak grows. The problem will only get worse with water shortages and poor sanitation systems. Those problems also contribute to 11 million cases of typhoid fever, resulting in 129,000 deaths; and 1.7 billion cases of diarrhoea among children younger than five, resulting in an estimated 446,000 deaths.

As the hon. Member for Hendon said, women and girls suffer most acutely from a lack of access to WASH. According to Water Witness, women and girls spend a total of 200 million hours fetching household water each day. My Committee heard that in hilly areas of Nepal, for example, women have to wake up at 3 am to collect water and return home before beginning their daily household tasks as the primary carer. That reduces their ability to attend school and work, and limits their political, social and economic participation.

In certain regions, water collection can increase the risk of women contracting diseases. As part of our inquiry into the FCDO’s approach to sexual and reproductive health, my Committee heard that women risk getting infected with the neglected tropical disease, female genital schistosomiasis—I am very happy for you to correct my pronunciation of that, Mrs Latham—through snails carrying parasites in bodies of water. It is a serious and painful condition, which also increases the risk of contracting HIV.

UNICEF and the WHO have found that half of the world’s healthcare facilities do not have basic hygiene services, rising to two thirds across the least developed countries. That meant that in 2021, 3.85 billion people lacked basic hygiene services at their healthcare facilities, 1.7 billion lacked basic water services and 780 million had facilities with no sanitation services.

Practising hygiene during antenatal care, labour and birth reduces the risk of infection, sepsis and death for children and their mothers. Right now, there are pregnant women receiving care and giving birth in places without basic access to clean water, soap and sanitation. WaterAid told my Committee that babies born in hospitals in low and middle-income countries are up to 20 times more likely to develop neonatal sepsis than hospital-born babies in high-income countries such as the UK. Those are shocking statistics, which emphasise starkly the global inequality of the issue.

Efforts across the world to achieve access to clean water and sanitation for all are being set back by climate change. Natural disasters such as floods and earthquakes destroy and damage water and sanitation infrastructure, and pollute water sources. My Committee heard that in coastal regions, due to sea level rises, saline contamination of water is increasing in countries such as Bangladesh. Saline water is a breeding ground for cholera. The UN also recognises that water shortages undercut food security and the income of rural farmers. Farmers often use waste water because it is the only reliable supply of water, which then increases the risk of infection for both farm workers and those who consume their crops. This is an act of desperation: 34 million people are facing acute levels of food insecurity in 2023.

On top of that, there is a vicious cycle of conflict and water scarcity that we must work to break. Scarcity of access to water is increasingly recognised as the likely multiplier of conflict, and it contributes to the creation of refugees. That conflict then increases the likelihood of destruction of water supply systems, and so the cycle continues. As we speak, we know that the people of Gaza have limited access to water, and nearby Jordan is now the second most water-scarce country in the world. Jordan’s resources are stretched by instability in the region, and it needs a sustainable strategy for long-term refugees, which my Committee has also published on. Two million Palestinian refugees are in Jordan and, given what is happening, that is likely to only increase.

The UN’s high-level panel on water predicts that 700 million people are at risk of being displaced by 2050 because of intense water stress. It is clear that access to water, sanitation and hygiene impacts on all aspects of a country’s development. I welcome the UK’s involvement in the declaration for fair water footprints at COP26, which brings together the needs of communities, businesses and ecosystems to stop water pollution and maintain the sustainable and equitable withdrawal and use of water.

Making water usage more equitable and sustainable will be key to achieving SDG 6 by 2030. However, since 2018 the UK aid budget for WASH has been slashed by nearly 80%, falling from £206.5 million to £45.6 million in 2022. The percentage of bilateral ODA spent on WASH has more than halved between 2021 and 2022. My Committee heard that

“The scale and the speed of the cuts have been shocking to those working in the sector.”

That is despite the FCDO approach paper on ending preventable deaths of mothers, babies and children by 2030, which included commitments to work with countries, partners and the private sector to strengthen WASH delivery systems.

As I have highlighted, WASH is crucial to the empowerment of women and girls, which again is a stated aim of this Government. To achieve SDG 6 in low and middle-income countries, WaterAid has stated that investment in WASH needs to triple by 2030, with at least $200 billion a year needing to be invested into WASH systems. That is where the UK Government could play a significant role in catalysing investment and bringing stakeholders together. I urge the Minister to reconsider the Government’s ODA spending on WASH so that it aligns with their own goals and priorities. Without action, the most vulnerable will continue to be at risk of dehydration, disease and death.

Select Committee on International Development

Debate between Pauline Latham and Sarah Champion

Thursday 14th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Champion]

I agree with my hon. Friend. What we need to see now is the Minister step up and outline how the Government are going to address the imbalance between recipients and aid workers which many seek to exploit, how we ensure all projects that receive UK funding are properly audited on their delivery and outcomes, and how they are looking actively to empower local communities so they can all reach their potential.

[Mrs Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con) [V]]

I thank the hon. Lady for her statement. My belief, having been involved since 2018, is that it is no good having tick-boxes for organisations when it is well known that it is endemic in the sector. It is also no good putting up notices in refugee camps in different places, because many of the women and girls cannot read. How are they going to report the situation anyway? Does she agree that now, having done this latest report, which is still pretty damning, the FCDO needs to cut off the funding for organisations—whoever they are, whether it is the WHO, Oxfam, Save the Children or whoever—and publicise what they are doing and why, so it gets out that nobody is above the law?

[Sarah Champion]

May I take this moment, Madam Deputy Speaker, to pay tribute to the hon. Lady who is a member of the Committee? She fought to get the first two reports into sexual abuse in the aid sector off the ground and continues to fight for women’s rights around the world. I completely agree with her. The Government need to show zero tolerance. The most effective way to do that is by taking away the cash. There can be no safe space for sexual abuse within the aid sector and no taxpayers’ money spent on supporting it.