WATER RESOURCES MANAGEMENT OPTIONS FOR SUSTAINABLE CITIES

GLOBAL INITIATIVES SUPPORTING URBANISATION, WATER AND ECOSYSTEMS

The demand for clean water and sanitation services is increasing for Africa’s urban areas in response to population

Access to water in urban Africa Million people

500

growth, changes in lifestyles and economic growth. Countries continue to urbanise, and the search for cost effective and sustainable water solutions is becoming more important. Good infrastructure may facilitate accessibility to clean water and sanitation services, but inadequate planning and ecosystems degradation often result in a mismatch between service delivery and demand.

Provision of safe drinking water is hampered by increasing levels of pollution, resulting in water delivered by some cities failing to meet the standards for potable water recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO).9

400 Urban population 300 200

Population with access to improved water sources

100

In order to meet international targets set out under the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) (especially goal 7 on Environmental Sustainability10

), cities are required to

build water supply and sanitation infrastructure, as well as to prevent current and future infrastructure from collapsing due to inadequate institutional arrangements, insufficient cost recovery, and poor operation and maintenance. In addition, the water and sanitation delivery have to be sustainable, implying the need to incorporate environmental considerations in planning and managing urban water.

0 1990 1995 2000 2005 2008 Source:WHO-UNICEF, A Snapshot of Drinking Water and Sanitation in Africa, 2010.

Figure 10: Improved water sources, defined as “one that is protected from outside contamination” (WHO/UNICEF 2010), is essential for ensuring the health of Africa’s urban dwellers. Although an increasing number of people have access to improved water, rapid urban population growth in the region has equally increased the number of people without proper access.

9. Potability is determined by physical and chemical factors, and by the contents of toxic substances in water. Details can be found in the WHO monograph, International Standards for Drinking Water. 10. Goal 7 of the MDGs includes target 7c which sets out to ‘halve, by 2015, the proportion of the population without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation’, and target 7d which aims to ‘by 2020, have achieved a significant improvement in the lives of at least 100 million slum-dwellers’.

57

By recognising the right to safe and clean drinking water and sanitation as a human right, the United Nations challenges countries to not only work towards meeting water-related targets under the MDGs, but also to ensure that the pace of urbanisation moves in tandem with the supply of safe drinking water and sanitation.