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CHINA: May 14, 2007
SHANGHAI - Access to safe drinking water has not improved in Africa, especially the sub-Saharan region, despite several years of strong economic growth, the African Development Bank said on Sunday.
The bank forecast Africa's economy would grow 5.9 percent this year, but even so Africa was unlikely to meet the Millennium Development Goal of providing safe drinking water for 78 percent of the population by 2015.
"We have been achieving growth in GDP that is not trickling down," Barfour Osei, a senior AfDB economist, told a conference. "It is very simply the fact the growth we have been achieving on the continent has not been pro-poor enough."
In sub-Saharan Africa only 56 percent of the people have access to what the bank calls "improved" drinking water; that leaves 332 million people without such access, a number expected to increase by 47 million by 2015.
Water resources are hugely variable across Africa, but the bank said it was poor management that was taking the greatest toll on availability.
"In most African cities over 50 percent of the water supply is wasted or unaccounted for," the bank said in its African Economic Outlook report. Much is wasted through leakage due to old pipes, inefficient use and pilfering, it said.
The bank recommends that Africa invest some US$20 billion a year until 2025 in providing a sustainable water supply, including drinking water and sanitation, but said that finding financing was a challenge.
Government budgets and development aid have been too small to cover the large investments needed, and economists said it was one of the least attractive sectors to private investors.
"This is for the simple reason that the characteristics of the sector introduce a basic good, which means that the regulatory process very seldom can allow for a rate of return more than 5 to 10 percent," said Kenneth Ruffing, one of the report's coordinators.
Progress in sanitation has also been largely disappointing, the bank said, with major consequences for the spread of diarrhoea and cholera and to infant mortality.
Sanitation problems may actually worsen with development as the volume of sewage increases, contributing to water pollution, and as people move into cities, living in informal settlements that are unconnected to sewage networks.
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
