Water crisis
Sanitation goals
BY S H A H N A S I R K H IS R O | 1/2/2014 12:00:00 AM
PAKISTAN faces a crisis that threatens the lives of millions of Pakistanis every year. It is also a crisis which in its resolution offers the potential for increased wealth, health and dignity for the whole country.
This crisis is in our access to water and, in particular, sanitation. They are the most basic of daily human needs, human rights recognised in international conventions to which Pakistan is a signatory, yet still far from the reach of many ordinary Pakistanis.
Pakistan is due to meet the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) target of halving the number of people without access to water by 2017. However, the situation for sanitation is bleak: 43 million people still defecate in the open, and the sanitation MDG may not be met until 2027.
The public health implications are severe. Some three million Pakistanis face infections from waterborne diseases every year. Children are especially affected by illnesses such as diarrhoea, often caused by unsafe water and inadequate sanitation, and killing more under-fives around the world than AIDS, malaria and measles combined.
Tackling this public health blight could bring huge economic dividends, with research from the WHO showing that every $1 invested in sanitation returns $4 to the wider economy. It could also advance gender equality and education, with women no longer forced to search in the dark for a place to defecate or look after children absent from school due to lack of sanitation or menstrual hygiene facilities. However, to do this requires a new policy approach.
During reconstruction after the 2010 floods, NGOs built thousands of latrines and water supply schemes. But despite the good intentions many systems were unsustainable due to the lack of operation and maintenance training given to local populations.
There was a culture of subsidy in calamity-hit areas. Local authorities absolved themselves of
BY S H A H N A S I R K H IS R O | 1/2/2014 12:00:00 AM
PAKISTAN faces a crisis that threatens the lives of millions of Pakistanis every year. It is also a crisis which in its resolution offers the potential for increased wealth, health and dignity for the whole country.
This crisis is in our access to water and, in particular, sanitation. They are the most basic of daily human needs, human rights recognised in international conventions to which Pakistan is a signatory, yet still far from the reach of many ordinary Pakistanis.
Pakistan is due to meet the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) target of halving the number of people without access to water by 2017. However, the situation for sanitation is bleak: 43 million people still defecate in the open, and the sanitation MDG may not be met until 2027.
The public health implications are severe. Some three million Pakistanis face infections from waterborne diseases every year. Children are especially affected by illnesses such as diarrhoea, often caused by unsafe water and inadequate sanitation, and killing more under-fives around the world than AIDS, malaria and measles combined.
Tackling this public health blight could bring huge economic dividends, with research from the WHO showing that every $1 invested in sanitation returns $4 to the wider economy. It could also advance gender equality and education, with women no longer forced to search in the dark for a place to defecate or look after children absent from school due to lack of sanitation or menstrual hygiene facilities. However, to do this requires a new policy approach.
During reconstruction after the 2010 floods, NGOs built thousands of latrines and water supply schemes. But despite the good intentions many systems were unsustainable due to the lack of operation and maintenance training given to local populations.
There was a culture of subsidy in calamity-hit areas. Local authorities absolved themselves of