Short reportSafe access to safe water in low income countries: Water fetching in current times
Section snippets
Background
Almost thirty years after the United Nations proclaimed the 1980s to be the International Drinking-Water Supply and Sanitation Decade, more than one billion people still lack access to safe drinking water (Coles & Wallace, 2005). Improved water sources are unavailable to a substantial percentage of the population in developing countries and elsewhere (for example, Indian reservations in the southwest United States). Essential for survival, water plays an important role in the establishment and
Current estimates of water fetching by gender
UNICEF, in conjunction with local governments, began the Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS) program in 1995 to collect data by which to monitor the situation of children and women in developing countries. Questionnaires were developed in consultation with other UN organizations, interagency groups monitoring the Millennium Development Goals, interagency development groups, and the USAID-supported Demographic Health Surveys. The collaborative approach helped ensure comparability across
Perspectives on women and water
In recent years, two main perspectives – health and economic – have dominated research on women’s work in supplying water. Social networking and political participatory aspects of women in relation to water have garnered substantially less attention.
Water-borne diseases are common in developing countries, and the health perspective focuses largely on the consequences of using contaminated water for drinking and sanitation (World Health Organization and United Nations Children’s Fund Joint
Measuring water fetching and its effects
Water fetching reflects a social and health disparity of major proportion. Average daily per capita domestic water consumption ranges from 1 gallon in Mozambique and 4 gallons in Angola, Cambodia, Ethiopia, Haiti, Rwanda and Uganda to 150 gallons in the United States (Data360, n.d.; 2002 data). In recent years, there have been several approaches to measuring water fetching, none of them comprehensive. The next sections describe several constructs that may more fully capture the individual and
Neglected concerns
Future research on water fetching will be strengthened by considering largely ignored factors, ones that go beyond time, linear distance, caloric expenditures, and opportunity costs.
Road casualties are an important risk. Transportation infrastructure is poor in developing countries, especially in rural areas. Water fetching often involves walking on poorly designed and chaotic roadways (often the only place to walk), and pedestrians share the roadways with vehicles and cyclists. Injuries and
Implications for research
Research on the multiple impacts of fetching water on women’s lives is incomplete, and the lack of gender-disaggregated data – as well as data on related health risks – obscures a more complete understanding of the unequal burden (Ray, 2007). Attendees at a recent Expert Group Meeting organized by the UN-Water Decade Programme on Capacity Development stressed the need for gender-disaggregated data (Seager, 2008). Data from the MICS program are a step forward. Such efforts extend initial public
Conclusion
Water for domestic and agricultural use is indispensable for food security and public health. As climate change, population growth, and development affect water availability, internal as well as external cooperative efforts are essential (Barnaby, 2009, Gleick, 2000). Policies designed to improve infrastructure are needed to increase, not just access to water but, safe access to safe and reliable water or risk losing the health advantage of having a nearby water source (Caldwell et al., 2003,
Acknowledgments
An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 2009 meeting of the American Public Health Association.
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