Africa Must Double Its Investment in Clean Water

Mugira Fredrick.

It is budget time in most of countries in Africa now. Huge amounts of money, as usual are going to funding sectors including those of defense, agriculture and infrastructure development. As experience has shown, not much is likely to go to solving what has been described as a ‘global crisis.’

While speaking at a May 16 hearing of the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on Africa, Donald Payne, the chairman of the sub-committee said that lack of clean water worldwide, especially in Africa, is a “global crisis.” True. This is something that should be addressed now.

“Lack of clean water,” as Payne put it, “claims the lives of 4,900 children everyday,” in Africa. How long shall this continue while African governments look on? Something must be done now. The campaign and support being devoted to putting to an end to crises such as that in Darfur region of Sudan, Eastern Chad and the rebel Lord Resistance Army affected region of Northern Uganda and southern Sudan must be extended to providing safe water to Africans too.

Whereas Africa, especially the Sub-Saharan Africa has a great potential for water provision, access to clean drinking water and water for productive purposes remains inadequate. Most of the countries receive rains throughout the year or two seasons a year. But what is disturbing is that according to statistics, only about 4 percent of rain water is used which leaves the rest to proceed to wetlands, rivers , lakes and sea without being put to fruitful use.

Must this water be wasted while problems as a result of shortage and lack of safe water continue to hit hard? No, something must be done. Cheap technologies should be devised to tap this rain water. For example in Uganda, the government is encouraging construction of rain water harvesting tanks. These are okay but might not be affordable o rural persons who are the majority that face the problem of lack of safe drinking water most. The government which collects taxes from the same persons who face lack of safe water should therefore come in to invest in helping them construct these tanks.

One of the initiatives could include helping these local people to access cheap plastic water tanks. Governments could buy these tanks, distribute them to every home and then people pay for them in installments or rather on a loan basis.

This might be seen as something usual. However neglecting it gives birth to something unusual. It is widely known that lack of clean water and sanitation leads to several diseases such as cholera , malaria, typhoid, yellow fever, river blindness, sleeping sickness, guinea worm, bilharzias, scabies to mention but a few. But what is amusing most governments in Africa have continued to allocate big amounts of their budget to strategies aimed at treating these diseases and not preventing them such as improving safe water access.

Just take an example of statistics by African Medical and Research Foundation – AMREF that “70 percent of East African Hospital visits are caused by contaminated water.” How much do the three East African governments spend on treating these people? What if such funds are invested in helping the local people access safe water? May be the percentage would reduce to 10 or none.

With the prevalence of such diseases still high in most African countries, it remains hard to believe that the UN Millennium Development Goal (MDG) that targets to reduce by half by 2015, the number of people without access to clean water will be achieved.

However, most African governments still dream of achieving this. These dreams therefore should lie mostly in doubling investments targeting people’s access to clean water. A priority should be given to cheap and appropriate technologies such as the use of rain water harvesting tanks which governments can buy and distribute to people. Emphasis should be put on educating and sensitizing communities and households on harvesting and storage of water from their roofs especially those who have modern roofs.

Extending piped water to many homes and subsidizing its costs to make it affordable to local people right from those living in mansions to those living in grass-thatched single rooms in slums is important too. More gravity flow water schemes should also be constructed too. Governments should also help local people in digging shallow wells where clean water can be collected.

It is also important that African governments cease relying on money from donors to help them provide safe water to their own local people. The tendency of “let’s wait for our teacher to help us find solutions” should cease.

It is true, agencies like the U.S Agency for International Development (USAID) which funded water supply activities and hygiene programmes worth 91.6 million dollars for the 2006-2007 fiscal year in more than 30 African countries should be commended. But African governments must not relegate their duty of providing safe water to their citizens to such agencies.

CURRENT ENVIRONMENTAL PROBLEMS IN UGANDA
1. Modification of physical environment by;
(i) Deforestation as in the case of Kalangala Islands and Mabira forest that is in pipeline.
(ii) Encroachment on wetlands. This is currently going on in Kampala city and several other towns as people try to construct residential houses. It is also in rural areas as farmers try to expand their farms.
(iii) Land fragmentation in places like Kabale as population increases.
(iv) Soil erosion especially in hilly areas of South Western Uganda. This is leading to silting of rivers such as River Rwizi and Kagera.
(v) Over exploitation of lake resources, as in the case of Lake Victoria, Albert and George where fishermen are fishing indiscriminately.
2. Human overpopulation. This is leading to diminishing habitants for other species as people expand their settlements and farms. It is leading to over exploitation of land and soil fertility exhaustion like in Buganda region. It is also leading to congestion in towns especially in slums which subsequently leads to diseases, such as cholera
3. Poor management of wastes in towns. This is leading to diseases such as
Cholera too.
4. Diseases such as HIV/AIDS and malaria that make people sick/ kill them.

HOW TO INCREASE AWARENESS
1. Sensitization. This can be done through media, political rallies, public debates, schools and others.
2. Through trainings such as those of environmental journalists, environment officers/scientists who can ably guide people to protect the environment.
3. Physical participation to be seen as role models.
CHALLENGES:-
• Lack of capital for sensitization such as buying air space on radio. Also like in the case of lack of enough money to pay reporters to investigate on environmental issues which is hard for private media companies.
• Lack of enough knowledge on environmental protection concepts. This is leading to lack of exposure to concepts in environmental systems among journalists, local leaders and some environmentalists too.
• An important issue therefore that should be addressed by managers and owners of media houses and government is the examination of factors and practices that drive journalists to report on others issues and neglect environment.
• Lack of cooperation from local people, with environmentalists and journalists. This is leading to continued degradation of environmental and also to scarcity of environmental stories on the side of journalists.

RECOMMENDATIONS
 There is need to raise on the number of reporters and journalists who are trained to specialize in covering the field of environment.

 There is also need to create simple environmental language that is accepted not only nationally but also internationally to help break the environmental jargon.

 Further more there is need for everyone involved in advocating for the environment say environmental officers, local leaders to become louder. More practical attention by the stakeholders in conservation of environment could see more people sensitized and well informed about the effects of their actions on environment

 Politicians should be realistic and not see their constituents in wrong and keep quite just because they fear that risking to attack them could mean loss of votes

 Media organizations too, should reorganize the problems associated with environmental degradation and come up with a policy of airing at least an environmental story per bulletin to effectively empower their audiences with knowledge to control this.