Water

In areas where the costs of enhancing water supplies from traditional sources are rising, the 2030 Water Working Group is recommending the preparation of formal costs curves similar to those shown in Figure 12. These cost curves rank each potential solution to a problem in terms of the relative cost per unit of desired outcome achieved and can be used to assess the likely costs and benefits of each solution. One of the most striking features of this approach is that one often finds solutions that both make more water available and cost less money. In China, for example, constructing water-availability cost curves identified 21 opportunities to make more water available for use and save money (Figure 12). These include increased paper recycling, investment in leakage reduction, waste- water reuse in power stations and commercial buildings and investment in water-efficient shower heads. All of these approaches are consistent with the development of a green economy, which seeks to minimise the impact of economic activity on the environment.

4.3 Flow of benefits from investment in the water supply and sanitation sector

Many returns to investment in the water sector are indirect. Build a toilet for girls in a school and they are more likely to go to school. This simple statement highlights the fact that investment in water opens up other opportunities for development. Assessing the case for more investment in water infrastructure in the Niger Basin, Ward et al. (2010) report that investment in providing access to potable water and in education are the only two variables that are consistently related to poverty reduction across the whole Niger River basin (Box 5).

Highlighting the complex spatial nature of responses to water investment, Figure 13 shows the predicted reductions in child mortality and morbidity from the protection of drinking water supplies.

Box 5: Empirical analysis of the relationship between poverty and the provision of access to water and sanitation in the Niger River basin

Ninety four million people live in the Niger River basin. The proportion living below the poverty line in Burkina Faso is 70.3 per cent, in Guinea 70.1 per cent and in Niger 65.9 per cent. Childhood mortality rates are up to 250 per 1000 live births. In 2004, only 53 per cent of those living in the Niger River basin were found to have access to a reliable and safe source of drinking water. Only 37 per cent had access to adequate sanitation facilities.

The quality of water used by households appears to be as important, or more so, than the total quantity of water available in the environment in predicting poverty levels. The use of unprotected well or surface water is generally positively correlated with increased child mortality and increased stunting.

In north-west Nigeria and east Nigeria, a 10 per cent decrease in the number of people using unprotected water is correlated with a decrease in child mortality of up to 2.4 per cent. Increased irrigation development is correlated with reductions in child stunting in central Mali, north-west Nigeria, central and eastern Nigeria and North Burkina Faso. Increased time spent in education is significantly correlated with a reduction in child mortality and child stunting. In much of the Mali Inner Delta, a one- year rise in the average level of education is associated with an approximate 3 per cent fall in child mortality.

The area of irrigated land was associated with decreases in poverty in only two cases, north-west

Nigeria and eastern Nigeria and northern Cameroon. This suggests that the contribution of irrigation to total rural welfare is low in the Niger River basin and that the levels of irrigation potential are too small at present to offer a discernable improvement in livelihoods at this scale of analysis. This is in contrast to the general literature on development in this region that suggests irrigation will be crucial for the future economic wellbeing of the basin, along with improvements in the productivity of rain-fed agriculture. However, it may be that the benefits of irrigation do not yet accrue to the people engaged in its practice or that they do so at levels too small to register in these statistics.

The data suggest poverty reduction initiatives that rely solely on hydrologic probabilities or fail to account for the different causal relationships of spatially- differentiated poverty are likely to be less effective than those that take a mixed approach.

Strong spatial patterning is evident. Education and access to improved water quality are the only variables that are consistently significant and relatively stationary across the Niger River basin. At all jurisdictional scales, education is the most consistent non-water predictor of poverty. Access to protected water sources is the best water-related predictor of poverty. Source: Ward et al. (2010)

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