Thinking about ensuring access to water and sanitation for all...

All of the 16 sustainable development goals (SDG) recently approved at the UN are certainly laudable and more than worth implementing. Each of the SDGs is important and every development practitioner and national government should be moving towards helping to attain the 100-odd targets identified in the SDGs. I want to think here about two of the eight targets articulated under SDG 6 Ensure access to water and sanitation for all. I focus on these two because I think I know a bit about them.

The first target is … improve water quality by reducing pollution, eliminating dumping and minimizing release of hazardous chemicals and materials, halving the proportion of untreated wastewater and substantially increasing recycling and safe reuse globally. There are several things that the nations working on this goal will need to do. Most of them turn around regulation. Those countries that do not have any substantial water quality regulation will need to seriously consider how to create and implement them in the context of their situations. For those countries that have adopted such regulations already, the focus must be on implementing them effectively. Without the twin forces of regulation and implementation (supported by routine monitoring and, when required, fines) industry (and the people) will not regard the government as serious about cleaning up water. Industry likely will complain and attempt to stall claiming that their products will become uneconomical. However government will need to stand fast and require that effluents are treated to the appropriate levels.

Something that countries can do that can help, almost immediately, is to develop training for people in rural areas that provides them with the skills to determine where to site a latrine so that the effluent will not impact drinking water. Many times latrines are placed up gradient (or up-stream) of drinking water sources. A simple training that provides people with the understanding of latrine effluents and their impacts, and some very basic hydrogeology, can help to preserve drinking water resources that otherwise might be tainted.

The next target is … substantially increase water-use efficiency across all sectors and ensure sustainable withdrawals and supply of freshwater to address water scarcity and substantially reduce the number of people suffering from water scarcity. Water scarcity is becoming ever more relevant as a result of the continued impacts of climate change. However, in the less-developed world, the biggest factor bearing on water scarcity today is irrigation. Many farmers have been brought up to believe that “more is better” whether that is fertilizer, insecticides …or water. Several countries have extremely low tariffs for power or diesel fuel in part so that farmers may more easily draw water from aquifers and pump it further to their fields. This has led to significant decreases in aquifer elevation often requiring that wells be deepened or that new wells be put in place. Working with farmers to assist them in understanding that there different approaches to irrigation that will more efficiently use water can open their eyes to these efficiencies’ and prompt them to re-think their approach. The methods can be as simple as introducing different plant varieties, to using data on soil type, moisture, and current weather to determine the required water for the day, to installing automated low volume irrigation systems, and finally (somewhat counter-intuitively) switching to hydroponics-based agriculture. However without providing these farmers with the technical and financial assistance to allow them to implement these new methods, these approaches will fail. It is essential that governments either find budget or identify investors with long time horizons to assist with providing funds for these activities.

An initial approach that countries can take is to equip their extension agents with information about water management emphasizing in part that there can be too much of a good thing. Many farmers, likely will be surprised that using less water can sometimes even assist in better crop growth. This small step will likely be met with significant and sometimes organized resistance. However, it is an essential part of beginning to address the problem of water scarcity.

None of what has been said above is surprising or particularly novel. However, I believe that starting in this manner can help countries, donors, and investors moving towards the goal of ensuring access to water and sanitation.