SPECIAL FEATURE
BOLIVIA, 2024
Patricia navigates the steep streets of La Paz, where the bright colors of the buildings contrast with the mundane challenges of everyday life. As an aspiring entrepreneur, she hopes to open a café that showcases local cuisine and culture. However, she faces a significant hurdle: the inconsistent water supply in her neighborhood. Without reliable access to clean water and proper sanitation, her plans remain on hold. She sees her neighbors struggling as well, and she knows that the lack of these essential services limits not only her dreams but also the potential of her community.
KENYA, 2024
Lila wakes to the sounds of bustling streets on the edge of Nairobi. As the sun peeks over the horizon she sets off, carrying her daughter on her back, on her daily routine of fetching water. The nearest source of water is a long walk away and every day she carries back two heavy jerry cans. Access to clean water is crucial for the health
Photo: Judgefloro; https: //creativecommons.org/ licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en
of Lila’s family; without it, she and her children are at risk of waterborne diseases. The trek is tiring, but she knows her efforts are vital for their well-being. Lila dreams of a day when clean water flows freely in her neighborhood, allowing her to focus on her children’s education and her small business selling fruit at the local market.
IN CONCLUSION Oceans apart, but united in need: Lila and Patricia represent the shared struggles of billions of people across the Global South in the 21st century – struggles that people have faced through centuries of human development. All these struggles reflect the universal need for clean water and sanitation, which have always been and will always be fundamental to our health.
crises, including overloaded water infrastructure. In the case of dams, engineers do long-term projections for 25 to 100 years – but their estimates are sometimes met in half or even a quarter of that time. Besides safe drinking water and modern sanitation, other responsibilities include flood, storm and wastewater management. These are particularly difficult in developing countries for three reasons. First is financial capacity, as cities can only afford to hire a certain number of water managers. Second is technical capacity because, with all the wastewater generated, pipelines need more frequent maintenance. Third is human capacity, which reflects and flows back into financial and technical capacity. These are interlinked challenges. OFQ : You mentioned the human right to water and sanitation. How exactly does that work? NN: The UN text on the human right to water and sanitation, passed in 2010,
is very concrete with quantitative indicators. For example, if you spend more than half an hour per day collecting, filling and storing water for your household needs, then your human right to water is compromised. If you must travel more than 1 km from your home to fetch water for your daily needs, then your human right to water is compromised. Some countries, like South Africa, have taken control and responsibility after being caught short in recent years. Cape Town made global news in 2017-2018 when even affluent neighborhoods had no water for a day and some districts even went three days without. That “Day Zero” was a wake-up call for many people – that even a rich city like Cape Town could be hit like that. The government then started putting its house in order: Taking stock, investing in rainwater harvesting and trying out new ways to monitor leaks and incentivize smart water management, also at the household level. My team is also focusing on the
megacity of Mumbai, India, home to around 23 million people and expanding. I recently met with one of the city’s urban management commissioners, who spoke about the challenges that water managers face. Over the last five years, Mumbai has invested several hundred million dollars in reforming its water supply system – a big budget for a city in a developing country! There are no easy answers, but what we can do is promote the use of renewable energy to power water recycling in smaller districts. That cuts the cost of laying pipelines, which can stretch up to 100 km. We need these innovations – approaching challenges from engineering, social and policy perspectives – while always seeking to improve efficiency. I’ve also argued for policy incentives. So as a “smart citizen” or “smart neighborhood”, you could benefit from green tax credits and perhaps get a 1-5 percent tax rebate. But that’s not an easy sell, as governments have little fiscal space nowadays.
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