research paper- liquid magic: how universal access to clean water will lead to poverty eradicaton in...

7/24/2019 Research Paper- Liquid Magic: How Universal Access to Clean Water Will Lead to Poverty Eradicaton in Sub-Sahara

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Liquid Magic: How Universal Access to Clean Water Will Lead to Poverty Eradication in Sub-

Saharan Africa

Senior Independent Project

Megan Grace LandauSpring 2012


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Abstract

My paper is about the water crisis and its implications on poverty eradication in sub-

Saharan Africa. I chose this topic because I believe each and every person deserves a life that is

free of poverty; a life that allows and enables him or her to realize their full potential as human

beings. Clean water is a crucial foundation for human development, yet for a large section of

humanity, access to it is not in place. Almost one billion people worldwide lack access to clean

water, but this headline number only captures one dimension of the problem. It is my hope that

this paper puts a face on those sub-Saharan Africans who suffer from ill health, gender

inequalities and restricted opportunities in education and the economy because of the water

crisis. I trust that within a generation, the worldwide water crisis can be consigned to history.

I relied heavily on the United Nations Development Programs Human Development

Report 2006, Beyond Scarcity: Power, Poverty and the Global Water Crisis. The United

Nations Millennium Development Goals Report 2011 was also very helpful throughout the

entire process. I interviewed Bobby Bailey, Erin Swanson and John Sauer, who each work fororganizations that promote the use of water projects in an effort to reduce poverty.

In this paper, I will argue that no other single intervention is more likely to have a

significant impact on poverty in sub-Saharan Africa than the provision of safe water. First, I will

discuss the state of poverty in SSA and the increasing global awareness of the water crisis. I will

describe the health implications of a lack of adequate WASH, and the time poverty experienced

by the women and children who must collect water each day. Then, I will describe the impact of

education on sustainability, the empowerment of women, the health of children, and the success

of the economy. I will conclude with a look into the future of the water crisis.


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Now, I am beautiful, exclaimed Helen Apio, with a glowing smile and fresh flowers in

her hair. She was speaking to Becky Straw, the Water Project Manager for charity: water, a

non-profit organization that brings clean and safe drinking water to people in developing nations.

Hope and happiness rocked Helens village in the rural countryside of Northern Uganda as the

local women cheered and danced exuberantly. They were celebrating the opportunities that came

with the new water well built in their village. The women used to spend most of their timewalking a mile and a half, four to five times a day, as they carried two five-gallon Jerry Cans 1to

the nearest water point. There, they had to wait in line, sometimes for hours, for contaminated

water. However, since the materialization of the new well, Helens life has been transformed. I

am happy now, Helen beamed, I have time to eat, my children can go to school. And I can

even work in my garden, take a shower and then come back for more water if I want! I am

bathing so well.2Because of its new water well, Helens village is prospering after centuries of

poverty. In Helens village, and sub-Saharan Africa as a whole, water changes everything.

1Jerry Can: A flat-sided can for storing or transporting liquids, used especially for motor fuels and having a capacity between of 20 and 23 liters.Jerry Cans are used in developing nations to carry water back and forth from water sources to schools, homes and villages. When full with water,a 20 liter Jerry can weights 44 pounds.2Becky Straw, Will the Beautiful Women of the World Please Stand Up, 8 Nov. 2011, . See Appendix A.


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Human progress depends on access to clean water and the ability of societies to harness

the potential of water as a productive resource. 3 Throughout history, initiatives in water,

sanitation and hygiene (WASH) reform have been the catalysts for economic growth and human

development. In fact, the water and sanitation crisis facing the people of the developing world

today has parallels with an earlier period in the history of todays rich countries:

Few people in the industrial world reflect on the profound importance ofclean water and sanitation in shaping the history of their countries or theirlife chances. Not too many generations ago the inhabitants of London,New York and Paris were facing the same security threats as those of inLagos, Mumbai and Rio de Janeiro today. Water polluted with raw sewagekilled children, created health crises, undermined growth and kept people

in poverty. New technologies and finance made universal access to cleanwater possible. But the crucial change was political At the start of the21stcentury the world has the opportunity to unleash another leap forwardin human development. Within a generation the crisis in water andsanitation could be consigned to history.4

For developing countries, it is becoming increasingly clear that the lack of access to

WASH facilities is truly a crisis. The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) proclaims,

The word crisisis sometimes overused in development. But when it comes to water, there is a

growing recognition that the world faces a crisis that, left unchecked, will derail progress

towards the Millennium Development Goals5and hold back human development.6

Water flows through all aspects of human life.7Access to it is a basic human necessity

and therefore a fundamental human right. Still, 884 million people worldwidethree times the

population of the United Statesdo not have access to clean water,8and 2.6 billion people lack

access to adequate sanitation; a crisis that threatens life and destroys livelihoods on a devastating

3Kevin Watkins, United Nations Development Program (UNDP), Human Development Report 2006; Beyond Scarcity: Power, Poverty and theGlobal Water Crisis (New York: UNDP, 2006) v.4Watkins 28.5This is a concept that I will discuss more extensively in a later section. 6Watkins v.7Watkins 20.8See Appendix B, Figures 2 and 3.


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scale.9The World Health Organization (WHO) deems twenty liters of water a day as the

minimum requirement per person for adequate drinking, sanitation, personal hygiene and

cooking. However, while the average American uses four hundred liters of water a day, the

average person in the developing world uses only ten liters. That is merely one half of a Jerry can

per day in the developing world, contrasted with two hundred Jerry cans per day in America.10In

regard to this disparity, the organization Living Water International notes:

Unlike war and terrorism, the global water crisis does not make mediaheadlines, despite the fact that it claims more lives through disease than anywar claims through guns. Unlike natural disasters, it does not galvanizeconcerted international action, despite the fact that more people die each year

from drinking dirty water than from the worlds hurricanes, floods, tsunamisand earthquakes combined. This is a silent crisis experienced by the poor, andtolerated by those with the resources, technology, and the political power toend it. Yet this is a crisis that is holding back human progress, consigninglarge segments of humanity to lives of poverty, vulnerability and insecurity.11

The water crisis is a crisis for the poor."#Worldwide, one in three people living on less

than one dollar a day lack access to clean water.13This correlation is reflected in sub-Saharan

Africa (SSA), where fifty-one percent of the population lives on less than $1.25 a day, the

international poverty line,"$and forty percent of the population15 lacks access to safe drinking

water."%The water crisis implications on poverty are nothing but a downward spiral. It is a crisis

that is almost exclusively experienced by the poor, however, its implications make it impossible

to relieve oneself of poverty.

9United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA), Millennium Development Goals Report 2011 (New York: UnitedNations, 2011) 54.10What We Do, WaterAid, .11A Global Crisis, Living Water International, .12UN DESA, Poverty Eradication, 18 Nov. 2011 . According to the United Nations Social Policy and Development Division,

poverty entails more than the lack of income and productive resources to ensure sustainable livelihoods. Its manifestations include hunger andmalnutrition, limited access to education and other basic services, social discrimination and exclusion as well as the lack of participation indecision-making.13Watkins 7.14UN DESA, MDG Report 2011 6.15United States, Census Bureau, Monthly Population Estimates (Washington, D.C.: Census Bureau, 21 Dec. 2011) 1. 327 million people in SSAlack access to clean water. Similarly, the population of America is currently estimated to be 307 million, according to the census bureau. 16World Health Organization/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Program, Progress on Sanitation and Drinking Water: 2010 Update (New York:UNICEF; Geneva: WHO, 2010) 7.


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In SSA, access to WASH is a necessary precursor to all other forms of development.

Without sustainable access to these amenities, time spent on water collection and the health

implications of water-related illnesses keep Africans of all ages and genders from earning an

education. Education, along with water, represents opportunity: it empowers people with the

knowledge, skills and confidence they need to shape a better future.17 In 2008, only sixty

percent of sub-Saharan Africans had access to an improved water source.18To meet the global

poverty eradication goals and to consign sub-Saharan African poverty to history, one hundred

percent of the people living in SSA need access to a safe and sustainable water source.

In this paper, I will argue that no other single intervention is more likely to have a

significant impact on poverty in sub-Saharan Africa than the provision of safe water. First, I will

discuss the state of poverty in SSA and the increasing global awareness of the water crisis. I will

describe the health implications of a lack of adequate WASH, and the time poverty experienced

by the women and children who must collect water each day. Then, I will describe the impact of

education on sustainability, the empowerment of women, the health of children, and the success

of the economy. I will conclude with a look into the future of the water crisis.

Background of Poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa

Before exploring the current state of poverty in SSA, it is important to understand the

regions fundamental causes for poverty. Africa is the second largest continent in both area and

population and SSA is divided into forty-nine independent countries.19About two-thirds of all

Africans live in rural areas, where they make a living growing crops or raising livestock.20In

many parts of rural Africa, the people live much as their ancestors did hundreds of years ago.

17 United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), Education Counts: Towards the Millennium DevelopmentGoals (Paris: UNESCO, 2010).18UN DESA, MDG Report 2011 54.19Bureau of African Affairs, Countries and Other Areas, US Department of State, 20. Nov 2011, . See Appendix C. 20Menghestab Haile, Weather Patterns, Food Security and Humanitarian Response in sub-Saharan Africa, Philosophical Transactions:Biological Sciences, 29 Nov. 2005: 2169. In 2001, the total population of sub-Saharan Africa was estimated at 667 million with 436 rural, ofwhich 92% (400 million) are agricultural.


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The problems associated with the water crisis are most severe in rural areas, primarily because

living beyond formal networks, rural communities typically manage their own water systems

without help from the government.21For dispersed rural populations, delivering WASH services

is more difficult and often more costly than for urban populations. In these areas, political factors

come into play: people in rural communities typically have a far weaker voice in government

policies than their urban counterparts.22

The legacy of European colonialism looms over Africa as the root of many of the

continents current problems. Ethnic rivalries and territorial disputes that developed among

nations in the postcolonial period continue threaten the stability of SSA, and problems such as

overpopulation, poverty, famine, and disease remain challenges for sub-Saharan African

countries.23 Since 1980, no less than twenty-eight sub-Saharan African countries have been at

war, most being internal battles for power and wealth within states.24In addition, many African

countries have been plagued by climate-related constraints, such as droughts, for a large portion

of their history.25 These droughts have serious impacts on the water crisis, at worst causing

famine and associated social disintegration.26

In SSA, the number of people living at the $1.25 a day poverty rate has increased

significantly since 1981. In absolute terms, the number of poor people has nearly doubled, from

200 million in 1981 to 390 million today. This leaves fifty-one percent of SSA in a state of

extreme poverty.27

21Watkins 10.22Watkins 53.23Africa, World Book Encyclopedia, 2001 ed.24Richard Dowden, Africa: Altered States, Ordinary Miracles (New York: PublicAffairs, 2009) 2-3.25Michael H. Glantz and Richard W. Katz, Drought as a Constraint in sub-Saharan Africa, AMBIO: A Journal of the Human Environment,2005: 334.26 Charlotte Benson and Edward Clay, The World Bank, The Impact of Drought on sub-Saharan African Economies: A Preliminary Examination(Washington, D.C.: The World Bank, 1998) 1.27World Bank Updates Poverty Estimates for the Developing World, The World Bank, 19 Nov. 2011, .


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United Nations Millennium Development Goals

At the 2000 United Nations (UN) Millennium Summit, the UN set eight Millennium

Development Goals (MDGs) with a target to end global poverty by 2015.28The goals represent

human needs and basic rights that every individual around the world should be able to enjoy

freedom from extreme poverty and hunger; quality education, productive and decent

employment, good health and shelter; the right of women to give birth without risking their lives;

and a world where environmental sustainability is a priority, and women and men live in

equality. The UN affirms, meeting the goals is everyones business, because achieving the

goals will put us on a fast track to a world that is more stable, more just, and more secure.

29

One target of the seventh MDG, target 7.C, strives to halve, by 2015, the proportion of

the population without sustainable access to safe drinking water and sanitation.30Although

access to safe water only specifically falls under Goal Seven, water management is essential to

meeting each of the eight MDGs.31Improved access to water and sanitation reduces poverty both

directly and indirectly. Therefore, poverty reduction strategies must include effective water and

sanitation interventions if they are to achieve long-term success.32

Health, Sanitation and Hygiene

The health implications from a lack of adequate WASH keep sub-Saharan Africans from

receiving a quality education and earning a suitable income.33Consequently, many are prevented

from being relieved of poverty. According to the World Bank, eighty-eight percent of all

diseases are caused by unsafe drinking water, inadequate sanitation and poor hygiene; and at any

given time, patients suffering water-related diseases occupy half of the developing worlds

28See Appendix D.29UN DESA, MDG Report 2011 3.30UN DESA, MDG Report 2011 53.31Poverty-Environment Partnership, Linking Poverty Reduction and Water Management, (Geneva: WHO, 17 Mar. 2006) 9.32Water, Sanitation and Poverty Reduction, (London: WaterAid, 2001) 2.33See Appendix E.


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hospital beds.Children are the most severely affected by unsafe water, as water-related diseases

are the second biggest killer of children worldwide.34In 2001, The Water Supply and Sanitation

Collaborative Council (WSSCC) found that a child dies every twenty seconds from a water-

related disease.35

Initiatives in WASH are vital to meeting four of the MDGs,36and especially important to

Goal Fourto reduce by two-thirds the under-five mortality rate. In an effort to put the

magnitude of adequate WASH into perspective, the UNDP compares the substance to

immunizations: Clean water and sanitation are among the most powerful preventative

medicines for reducing child mortality. They are to diarrhea what immunization is to killer

diseases such as measles or polio: a mechanism for reducing risk and averting death. 37

Adequate sanitation has the potential to produce cumulative benefits in public health,

employment and economic growth.38According to the UNDP, Toilets may be an unlikely

catalyst for human progressbut the evidence that they are is overwhelming.39Improved

sanitation is defined as access to a facility that ensures hygienic separation of human excreta

from human contactbasically, access to a toilet. Worldwide, two in five people do not have the

security and dignity of a hygienic latrine or toilet,40even though access to such a facility reduces

death rates by forty percent.41 This lack of hygienic separation is such a significant problem

primarily because, as the United Nations Childrens Fund (UNICEF) reports, One gram of feces

can contain ten million viruses, one million bacteria, one thousands parasite cysts and one

34Rachel Oliver, All About: Water and Health, CNN, 18 Dec. 2007: 1.35Sanitation is Vital for Health, Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council, .36Goal 4: Reduce by two thirds the under-five mortality rate. Goal 5: Improve maternal health. Goal 6: Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and otherdiseases. Goal 7.C: Reduce by half the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation.37Watkins 43.38See Appendix F.39Watkins 120.40WHO/UNICEF, Progress on Drinking Water and Sanitation, 2010 Update 2.41Integrated Projects, WaterAid, .


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hundred parasite eggs.42Naturally, without sanitation facilities to safely contain and dispose of

human feces, the health of a community is put at severe risk.

The sanitation situation in SSA is particularly bleak. In 2008, only sixty-nine percent of

sub-Saharan Africans had secure access to an improved43sanitation facility,44and poor people

were over fifteen times more likely to practice open defecation than those who were better off. 45

Mary Akinyi describes the sanitation conditions in the Mugomo-ini village where she lives in

Kiberia, Kenya:

The conditions here are terrible. You can see for yourself. There is sewageeverywhere. Some people have pit latrines, but they are shallow and they

overflow when it rains. Most people use buckets and plastic bags fortoiletsand the children use the streets and yards. Our children suffer allthe time from diarrhea and other diseases because it is so filthy.46

Teenage girls are the most heavily impacted by the deficit in sanitation due to the stigma

surrounding menstruation. In SSA, lack of access to sanitation becomes a central cultural and

human health issue, contributing to female illiteracy and low levels of education, in turn

creating to a cycle of poor health for women and their children. 47School attendance rates among

girls rise by eleven percent when private sanitation facilities are available at the school building,

enabling the girls to carry on with their education while they are menstruating. Often times,

parents withdraw their daughters from school when the school does not offer adequate sanitation

and separate toilets for girls due to concerns regarding security and privacy. In one estimate

42International Year of Sanitation 2008: Overview, United Nations Childrens Fund (UNICEF), 2008, .43An improved facility refers to any sanitation facility that securely separates human excreta and human contact, such as a pit latrine orstandpipe.44UN DESA, MDG Goal Report 2011 55.45John Garret and Tom Slaymaker, Sub-Saharan Sanitation Targets Two Centuries Away, Epoch Times 29 Nov. 2011: 17. 46Watkins 38.47United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health, Sanitation as a Key to Global Health: Voices From the Field (Ontario:United Nations University, 2010) 11.


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made by the UNDP, about half of the girls in SSA who drop out of primary school do so because

of poor water and sanitation facilities.48

In order to ensure a lasting and sustainable impact, community education regarding

sanitation and hygiene must be integrated as a central focus of all water projects. Without

knowledge of proper sanitation and hygiene, an entire communitys supply of clean water can be

easily contaminated, because when clean water is brought to villages for the first time, citizens

do not know how to protect the cleanliness of the water or of themselves.49For instance, if a

child goes to the bathroom and then dips his hands in a water source without washing them, he

contaminates all of the previously clean water. In addition, unhygienic handling of water during

transport or within the home can contaminate clean water, as hands are vehicles for transmitting

pathogens to food, water and mouths.50Tragically, if current rates of progress continue, universal

access to sanitation in SSA will not be met for another two hundred years.51

Many of the diseases that plague sub-Saharan Africans are easily preventable, meaning

they can be prevented with steady access to clean water, effective sanitation and good hygiene.

In fact, approximately ten percent of the total global disease burden could be prevented by

improvements related to WASH.52

Worldwide, eighty-eight percent of all cases of diarrhea are attributable to unsafe and

inadequate WASH, and in Africa, diarrhea is the primary killer of children.53 The disease

48Watkins 268.49B. Wisner and J. Adams, World Health Organization, Environmental Health in Emergencies and Disasters (Geneva: WHO, 2002) 124. 50WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Program, Progress on Drinking Water and Sanitation: Special Focus on Sanitation (New York: UNICEF,Geneva: WHO 2008) 4.51Maroussia Klep, Political Motivation in sub-Saharan Africa Essential for Reaching Sanitation Millennium Development Goals, MediaGlobal News: The Developing World in Focus 29 Sept. 2011: 1. 52Annette Pruss-stn, Bos, Gore and Bartram, Safer Water, Better Health: Costs, Benefits and Sustainability of Interventions to Protect andPromote Health (Geneva: WHO, 2008) 7.53Garret and Slaymaker 4.


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category diarrhea encompasses several more severe diseases, most notably cholera,54typhoid

fever55and bacillary dysentery. In addition, fifty percent of all malnutrition cases are associated

with repeated diarrhea as a result of unsafe WASH. 56

Parasitic worms also lead to many diseases in SSA, though basic sanitation alone reduces

the presence of these diseases by up to seventy-seven percent.57Schistosomiasis58is one of the

most brutal worms, along with bilharzias, guinea worm and hookworms.59

Water-washed diseases, perhaps the easiest disease category to prevent, are caused by a

water scarcity where people cannot wash themselves, their clothes or their homes regularly. The

most common water-washed diseases are trachoma,

60

the leading cause of preventable blindness

in the developing world, and scabies.61The prevention of these simply entails the ability to wash

regularly with soap.

Malaria is common in areas where much of the drinking water is stagnant. 62Enclosed and

stable water projects are necessary in sub-Saharan African communities in order to reduce the

use of stagnant water, subsequently reducing the prevalence of malaria.

Although neither HIV nor AIDS is caused by a lack of WASH, little or no access to safe,

clean water in a community often positively correlates with a high prevalence of both the virus

54Eric Mintz and Richard Guerrant, A Lion in Our Village- The Unconscionable Tragedy of Cholera in Africa, The New England Journal ofMedicine, 12 March 2009: 1060. The cholera epidemic is often a fatal consequence of inadequate access to safe drinking water and sanitation,and in 2008 alone, there were about 57,500 suspected cases of cholera in sub-Saharan Africa. 55Samuel Kariuki, Typhoid Fever in sub-Saharan Africa: Challenges of Diagnosis and Management of Infections, The Journal of Infection inDeveloping Countries: 1. 400,000 cases of typhoid occur annually in Africa, with school-age children, especially those from resource-poorsettings with inadequate WASH systems, disproportionately affected.56Pruss Ustun, Bos, Gore and Bartram 7. For more information about malnutrition, see Appendix G, Figure 1. 57Facts and Figures, World Health Organization, .58V.R. Southgate, D. Rollinson, L.A. Tchuem Tchuente and P. Hagan, Towards Control of Schistosomiasis in sub-Saharan Africa, Journal ofHelminthology, 22 Feb. 2007: Abstract. Approximately 80% of the 200 million people infected with schistosomiasis inhabit SSA, and the annualmortality in SSA is estimated to be 280,000.59For more information about parasitic diseases, see Appendix G, Figure 2. 60Watkins 46. In 2004, 1,380,000 people in sub-Saharan Africa were living with blinding trachoma. A greater number of people were living withtrachoma that had not yet caused blindness yet. For more information on trachoma, see Appendix H, Figure 1. 61Water Washed Diseases, WaterAid, .62WHO, Malaria, . According to the World Malaria Report 2010, there were 225 million cases of malaria and an estimated 781,000deaths due to the disease in 2009. Most of these deaths occurred in Africa, where a child dies every forty-five seconds of malaria and the diseaseaccounts for approximately twenty percent of all childhood deaths.


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and syndrome.63Caring for individuals with HIV/AIDS requires close and sustainable access to

safe water, primarily because people with HIV can need over one hundred liters of water per day

to remain as healthy as possible.64

In SSA, good health is reliant upon adequate WASH; and all subsequent forms of

community developmentnamely education and time spent on productive workare reliant

upon good health. Without a healthy foundation, it is impossible that significant improvements in

poverty eradication will materialize.

Time Poverty

Becky Straw, who met with Helen Apio in her rural Ugandan village, reflects on a

recurring image she sees as the Water Project Manager of charity: water: I travel to some of

the most desperate places on earth in search of clean water. And while the landscape changes,

theres always one thing that remains the same: the women are always walking the women are

always carrying water. From the back of a truck in Uganda, she reports:

I watch women gather up their children and move to the edge of the road

to let us pass. Their feet are gnarled and calloused: a result of thousands ofmiles walked barefoot over rocks and mud. With babies strapped to theirbacks, their brightly colored skirts sway and their knees quiver and braceunder the weight of water and children. Most balance pails on their heads,while some grip eighty pounds of water with sweaty palms, a brightyellow five-gallon Jerry Can in each hand. Im in awe of how theymanage. But of course, they have no choice. The average woman in Africawalks three miles every day for water. Often, its water from putrid riversor disease infested-swamps. Worldwide, women are more than twice aslikely as men to collect drinking water.65

Straws experiences reflect the conditions of time poverty and gender inequality in SSA.

In most of the region, the gender divisions of labor assign women responsibilities that men do

not share. The most obvious pattern in the division of labor is that women are mostly confined

63Water and HIV/AIDS, Lifewater International, .64WaterAid, Web log post, , 1 Dec. 2011. For more information about HIV/AIDS, see Appendix H, Figure 2. 65Straw online. See Appendix I.


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to unpaid domestic work and unpaid food production, whereas men dominate in cash crop

production and wage employment.66For the women of SSA, time spent collecting water

represents a heavy burden, accounting for an average of fifteen to seventeen hours per week in

rural areasabout twenty-six percent of a womens time.67An average of forty billion hours a

year are spent collecting water in SSAequal to a years employment for the entire workforce

of France.68The opportunity costs of water collection in SSA represent approximately two full

months of labor per person, accounting for a lesser amount of time spent on education, income

generation and leisure for women and children.

In its report entitled Gender, Time Use and Poverty in sub-Saharan Africa, the World

Bank attempted to define the term time poverty:

In broad terms, time poverty can be understood in the context of theburden of competing claims on individuals time that reduce their abilityto make unconstrained choices on how they allocate their time, leading, inmany instances, to increased world intensity and to trade-offs amongvarious tasks The negative impact of these tradeoffs can be observed invarious dimensions of human poverty such as food security, childnutrition, health and education.69

Although time poverty seems to only penalize women, it also deeply affects the

development and opportunities of children. This is because, throughout the developing world,

both men and women play multiple roles (productive, reproductive and community

management) in society.70Yet while men are generally able to focus on a single productive role

at any given time, women play their roles simultaneously and must balance simultaneous

competing claims on limited time for each of them.71Women, in turn, must bear the brunt of

66Gender Terminology, USAID, .67Womens Issues, WaterAid, .68Watkins 47. Women, Water.org, . Worldwide, women spend two hundred million hours fetching water each day, greater than theaverage number of hours that employees of WalMart, UPS, McDonalds, IBM, Target and Kroger work in one week, combined. 69C. Mark Blackden and Quentin Wodon, The World Bank, Gender, Time Use and Poverty in sub-Saharan Africa (Washington, D.C.: The WorldBank, 2006) 16.70Blackden and Wodon 1.71Patricia Apps, Gender, Time Use and Models of the Household (Sydney: University of Sydney and IZA Bonn, June 2003) 1.


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multiple domestic tasks at one time, the two most necessary and time-consuming tasks being

providing water and caring for children.72Consequently, young children are brought along on

trips to collect water with their mothers, and often times, older children are sent to collect water

on their own so that their mothers can perform other domestic and income-generating work.73

The time spent collecting water keeps the children out of school, consequently refusing them

access to the most direct asset in poverty eradication, a quality education. After a water-well was

built in her village, Mzee Kityngile of the Songambele Village in Tanzania reported, It is now

difficult to find school-going children loitering around the village looking for water, which was

common in the past as everyone had to use extra hands to collect as much water as possible from

distant sources.74

The burden of time poverty on education is especially prevalent for girls, who are

assigned the task of water collection more frequently than males, because of deep gender

inequalities.75The UNDPs Human Development Report 2006 explains:

The time burden of collecting and carrying water is one explanation for

the very large gender gaps in school attendance in many countries. InTanzania school attendance levels are twelve percent higher for girls inhomes fifteen minutes or less from a water source than in homes an houror more away. Attendance rates for boys are far less sensitive to distanceto water sources. For millions of poor households, there is a straight trade-off between time spent in school and time spent collecting water.76

This explicit inequality consigns girls to a future of illiteracy and restricted choice.

When access to water and sanitation are secured in each rural sub-Saharan village,

womens time is freed up for income gathering work, looking after children and the elderly,

72Blackden and Wodon 2.73Apps 32.74 Water, Sanitation and Education, WaterAid, .75Apps 1.76Watkins 47.


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earning an education, or simply relaxing; and childrenspecifically girlscan attend school

more consistently. Without these provisions in place, poverty eradication cannot materialize.77

Education

In the developing world, education represents opportunity. It empowers people of all ages

with the knowledge, skills and confidence they need to shape a better future in a smart and

sustainable fashion and helps people make decisions that meet the needs of the present without

compromising those of future generations. After examining its effects on each of the MDGs, it is

clear that education makes crucial impact on the eradication of poverty.78

Although the Universal Declaration of Human Rights holds that every child and adult is

entitled to an education,79the school enrolment rates in African countries are among the lowest

in the world.80 In 2009, only seventy-six percent of primary-school aged children in SSA were

enrolled in school,81accounting for forty-eight percent of the worldwide deficit in primary

education. 82 In the case of many rural African communities, education opportunities are

overwhelmingly affected by the availability of adequate WASH.83 In these communities, the

burdens of disease and time-poverty directly limit access to education. The alleviation of these

burdensas a result of sustainable access to WASH in each community and at each school

plays a direct role in the rise of attendance rates, and consequently, the drop in absenteeism and

dropout rates.84 Since the achievement of each MDG positively correlates with a quality

education, it is critical that we invest in the development of quality systems for learning through

77Womens Issues online.78Education Counts online.79The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, United Nations, .80African Education Initiative, USAID, .81UN DESA, MDG Goals Report 2011 17.82Education Counts online. Sixteen billion dollars a year in aid would send all children to school in low-income countries. This is about half ofthe amount Americans spend on ice cream annually (thirty-one billion dollars).83UN DESA, MDG Goals Report 2011 18.84Poverty-Environment Partnership 24.


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life if we are to meet the goals for poverty eradication.85These systems must be developed with

WASH in mind, paying special attention to the implications of ill-health and time-poverty.

The education of children today dictates the success of sub-Saharan African communities

in the future, as it gives people the knowledge and skills they need to live better lives, boosts

productivity, and open doors to jobs and credit.86According to the UN Educational, Scientific

and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), 171 million people could be lifted out of poverty if all

students in low-income countries left school with basic reading skillsequivalent to a twelve

percent cut in world poverty. By relieving children of poverty and teaching valuable skills,

schools act as assets to the community and catalysts for a better future.

87

Fundamentally,

without success in meeting MDG Goal Two, to achieve universal primary education, it is

impossible to achieve Goal One, to eradicate global poverty and hunger; because an equal

access to education is the foundation for all other development goals.88

Universal access to education for children benefits both current and future generations.

After initiatives in poverty reduction strategies are taught in the classroom, children are

encouraged to teach their parents and peers what they have learned, consequently spreading the

lessons and initiatives throughout the entire community.89In regards to this exponential reaction,

the UNDP refers to children as agents of change:

The classroom is one of the best places for effective positive changes inhygiene. Teaching children hand washing and other good hygiene habitsprotects their health and promotes transformations beyond school. InMozambique a national campaign trained children to teach other childrenabout hand washing and sanitation-related problems. In China and NigeriaUNICEF-supported school-based hygiene projects report increases of 75-80% in hand washing with soap.90

85Education Counts online.86Education Counts online.87Water and Education, Lifewater International, .88Millennium Development Goals: Achieve Universal Primary Education, UNICEF, .89Personal Hygiene and Sanitation Education, AMREF, June 2009, .90Watkins 116.


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The most significant health-related implications on education is that people, primarily

children, are kept out of school due to the abundance of debilitating water-related diseases.91

Children are often too sick to attend school, and in many cases, embarrassing diarrhea

92

keeps

them home. Additionally, it is not uncommon that schools must be suspended or closed due to

epidemics in the community. According to Lifewater International, frequent outbreaks of

waterborne diseases make a good education in rural areas nearly impossible.93

When diseases do not keep children home from school, they can hinder the students

potential for academic success. It has been found that poor health directly reduces cognitive

potential and indirectly undermines school through attention deficits.94Even when the children

who drink contaminated water avoid acute illness, they are likely to suffer impeded intellectual

development due to chronic diarrhea and parasites. 95 In a study called Disease and

Intelligence, The Economistreported:

There is, moreover, direct evidence that infections and parasites affectcognition. Intestinal worms have been shown to do so on many occasions.

Malaria, too, is bad for the brain. A study of children in Kenya whosurvived the cerebral version of the disease suggests that an eighth of themsuffer long-term cognitive damage. However, it is the various bugs thatcause diarrhea which are the biggest threat. Diarrhea strikes children hard.It accounts for a sixth of infant deaths, and even in those it does not kill, itprevents the absorption of food at a time when the brain is growing anddeveloping rapidly.96

91Watkins 6.92Mintz, Guerrant 1062. Diarrheal diseases are a taboo subject in most sub-Saharan African villages. Since they are rarely spoken about, sufferersdo not know how to control or prevent the diseases. Similarly, before its reduction became an internationally prevalent issue, HIV/AIDS faced thesame taboo. To put an end to this taboo, President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda took an innovative and effective approach as he began to changethe public attitudes towards HIV in his country: he succeeded in reducing the rates of AIDS in Uganda when he re-characterized the disease assimilar to any other threat to the community. When a lion comes into your village, he said, you must raise the alarm loudly. Initiatives similarto this one, with a focus on diarrhea in addition to HIV/AIDS, are imperative to the governance of all African nations if effective results are to beseen in reducing death rates.93Water and Children, Lifewater International, .94Jeffrey Sachs, Macroeconomics and Health: Investing in Health for Economic Development (Geneva: World Health Organization, 20 Dec.2011) 33.95Watkins 6.96Mens Sana In Corpore Sano: Parasites and Pathogens May Explain Why People in Some Parts of the World are Cleverer Than Those inOthers, The Economist, 1 June 2010, .


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Health and education clearly have reciprocal benefits. When the people of SSA are

healthier, their attendance rates at school rise and the effectiveness of their education increases.

As their intellect grows, they gain the knowledge and skills necessary to keep themselves and

their children as healthy as possible in the future, in turn leading to even greater educational

opportunities and healthier lives.

Education reduces child mortality97by teaching mothers who have children under the age

of five years old the benefits of and strategies to ensure good health for their children. In

developing countries, children of mothers with secondary education or higher are twice as likely

to survive beyond age five as those whose mothers have no education, and each extra year of a

mothers schooling reduces the probability of infant mortality by five to fifteen percent. 98

In addition, education improves maternal health.99With benefits that work in conjunction

with population control, empowerment through education is one of the strongest antidotes to

maternal risk. Women with higher levels of education are more likely to delay and space out

pregnancies, and to seek health care and support.100Currently, one-quarter to one-half of girls in

developing countries have children before they are eighteen years old.101Naturally, curbing this

number will increase education opportunities, empowerment, and health for the girls and for

their children. Therefore, including lessons regarding contraceptives and family planning into

educational curriculums is imperative.

With regards to water, it is important that sub-Saharan Africans are educated about the

benefits of ensuring environmental sustainability.102The UNDP realizes, It is already clear that

competition for water will intensify in the decades ahead. Population growth, urbanization,

97The lowering of child mortality rates in relation to poverty eradication is reflected in MDG Goal Four. 98Education Counts online.99Improving maternal health in relation to poverty eradication is reflected in MDG Goal Five. Education Counts online. In Niger, women facea one-in-seven chance of dying in childbirth. In rich countries, the odds average one-in-eight thousand.100Education Counts online.101Education Counts online.102Ensuring environmental sustainability in regards to poverty eradication is reflected in MDG Goal Seven.


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industrial development and the needs of agriculture are driving up demand for a finite

resource.103 In rural villages of SSA, water availability has a profound affect on agricultural

productivity, and as the population continues to grow, the necessity for food will increase.104

Therefore, water must be treated as a precious natural resource, rather than an expendable

commodity.105When clean water is properly conserved and sustained, the increased agricultural

yields that it generates will decrease malnourishment for sub-Saharan Africans as well as

increase household incomes, market activity, and overall community health. To meet these

benchmarks in the eradication of poverty, it is essential that communities be taught about

sustainable practices in conserving their water.

106

The agricultural opportunities afforded by sustainable control of clean water sources will

not only aid in the economic advancement of rural sub-Saharan African villages; they will

empower women to be leaders in the economic and decision-making divisions of their

villages.107Currently, women are doubly disadvantaged in irrigation systems. Lacking formal

rights to land in many countries, they are excluded from irrigation system management. At the

same time, informal inequalitiesincluding the household division of labor, norms on women

speaking in public and other factorsmilitate against women having a real voice in decision-

making Change is possible, however.108This change towards gender equality is rooted in the

ability of women to earn an income by producing crops, but a number of factors must be in place

in order for women to do so. Their own health must be ensured, as well as the health of their

children; their children must be cared for in school during working hours; clean water must be

103Watkins vi.104Ester Boserup, The Conditions of Agricultural Growth: The Economies in Need of Agrarian Change Under Population Pressure (NewBrunswick: Transaction, 2005) viii.105Watkins 24.106Education Counts online.107Reyes Aterido, Thorsten Beck and Leonardo Iacovone, The World Bank, Gender and Finance in sub-Saharan Africa: Are WomenDisadvantaged?, (Washington, D.C.: World Bank, 1 Feb. 2011) 8. 108Watkins 18.


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Landau 21

present within a few miles of the village so that the women are not burdened by time poverty;

there must be enough water available for both men and women to use for irrigation; and the

women must be able to obtain an education regarding agricultural productivity. With each of

these elements in place, the economic outcomes of agricultural women are profound. 109

In 2005, twenty-four hundred Sudanese farmers gained access to various tools to improve

their productivity, including small-scale irrigation systems, as a piece of a five-year Recovery

and Rehabilitation Program implemented across the country. Aisha Sharief, a woman who heads

a farm run by women in Arabaat, notes the continued benefits that the program has provided,

even six years later: Nowadays we have permanent irrigation and alternate crops like sorghum

and vegetables.110She also grows tomatoes, okra and arugula, which are sold at markets in Port

Sudan, thirty kilometers away from her farm. In addition, Aisha is a member of an agriculture-

realted business association, the first leadership position of her life.111After Aishas community

was able to secure sustainable access to water, the villages women as well as the village as a

whole reaped benefits in several areas. With a more extensive array of crops grown on their

fields, the villages malnutrition is combated; by selling crops at a market, economic activity on

personal and community-wide levels is increased; and from leadership opportunities for women,

gender equality is improved. While theses widespread advantages of irrigation systems in

regards to health, the empowerment of women, and the economy are very apparent, it is

important to remember the underlying drive of each of these advantages: the ability of villages to

secure access to their water in a sustainable fashion, made possible by a solid education. 112

109Watkins 19.110More Water, Better Lives for Sudanese Farmers, UNDP News Center, 23 May 2011, .111More Water, Better Lives for Sudanese Farmers online.112K. O. Oloruntegbe, et al., Rethinking Development and Sustainability of African Economy: The Roles of Science Education, AfricanJournal of Business Management, June 2010: 812-813.


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Landau 22

Currently, across SSA, women are paid less for their work and have limited access to

positions of decision-making power; however, wages, agricultural income and productivityall

critical for reducing povertyare higher where women involved in agriculture receive a better

education. 113 This outcome is supported by the Human Capital Theory, which asserts,

Education creates skills that facilitate higher levels of productivity amongst those who possess

them in comparison with those who do not. Education, then, is costly but it brings associated

benefits which can be compared with its costs in much the same way as happens with any

investment project.114This theory is demonstrated in Kenya, where if women farmers are given

the same level of education as their male partners, their yields for beans, maize and cowpeas

increase by up to twenty-two percent.115 It is clear that many aspects of poverty reduction

namely a sustainable water supply; the empowerment of women; the increase of economic

activity and personal income; greater health; and increased educational opportunitieswork in

conjunction with reciprocals benefits for one another. However, it is basic access to water that

fundamentally allows each of these individual aspects to thrive.

Additional empowerment for women is rooted in their reproductive choices, and it has

been found that when educated, women have greater control over these choices. According to the

World Bank and the University of Gottingen in Germany, an extra year of female schooling

reduces fertility rates by ten percent.116In Mali specifically, women with a secondary education

or higher have an average of three children, while those with no education have an average of

seven children.117 In the fight to eradicate poverty and achieve universal access to WASH,

113Education Counts online.114Zoe Oxaal, Education and Poverty: A Gender Analysis (Brighton: University of Sussex, 2007) 3. 115Agnes Quisumbing, Ruth Meinzen-Dick, and Lisa Smith, Increasing the Effective Participation of Women in Food and Nutrition Security inAfrica (Washington, D.C.: International Food Policy Research Institute 2004) 4.116Dina Abu-Ghada and Stephan Klasen, The Economic and Human Development Costs of Missing the Millennium Development Goal onGender Equity (Washington, D.C.: World Bank, Gottingen: University of Gottingen, May 2004) 12.117Education Counts online.


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Landau 23

population control118is essential. Population growth means, any slippage from the Millennium

Development Goal target [to halve to proportion of the population without access to water and

sanitation] will leave the world standing still on water and sanitation coverage.119

Education touches all aspects of life and its gains are cumulative and long lasting.

However, without fundamental health and time, women and children cannot and do not earn a

proper level of schooling. In terms of poverty eradication in the rural villages of SSA, a lack of

education is the problem and sustainable access to clean water is the solution.

Conclusion

As the organizations charity: water and Living Water International drilled into the red

African dirt of an isolated rural community in Rwanda, a diverse and anxious crowd waited

excitedly for the first signs of clean water. Instantaneously, as water hit the spout of the newly

installed hand pump, the crowd rose in huge cheers of celebration. The children made a mad

dash for the water, drinking, bathing and basking in their refreshment. Like liquid magic, joy

swept the crowd.120

In recent years, the water crisis has come to the attention of the developed world as

numerous non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have placed universal access to adequate

WASH at the center of their poverty reduction strategies. With high standards for themselves,

these organizations are making a significant impact, typically utilizing focused projects just like

the one in Rwanda. Many of the NGOs struggle relentlessly to find a perfect balance between

immediate results and projects that are highly sustainable.121However, their work, funded almost

entirely by public donations, simply cannot achieve the necessary results fast enough.

118The specific ways in which population control leads to eradication of poverty are extensive as well as controversial, and therefore beyond thescope of my paper.119Watkins 55.120Esther Havens and Taylor Walling, Rwanda: Meet Jean Bosco, charity: water, . 121See Appendix J.


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Landau 24

The water crisis is not a problem of scarcity. The problem is that some peoplenotably

the poorare systematically excluded from access by their poverty, by their limited legal rights

or by public policies that limit access to the infrastructures that provide water for livelihoods.122

In short, water scarcity is manufactured through political processes that disadvantage the poor.

In order to consign the crisis to history, African governments must see improved access

to WASH as the focal point of their national agendas. They must bring water and sanitation out

of the shadow and into the mainstream by giving a voice to the individualswomen, children,

teachers, and doctorswho are hit the hardest by the crisis. 123 In doing so, it is necessary that

they remove the manufactured scarcity of water for the unseen and unheard rural populations

who currently suffer day-in and day-out.

The rest of the international order must not forget about the crisis, either. The ten billion

dollar price tag to achieve the MDG to ensure universal sustainable access to clean water seems

like a large sum, but put into context, it represents less than five days worth of global military

spending.124

In 2015, the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) will launch the

Jupiter Icy Moons Project to determine whether the conditions for life exist on three of Jupiters

moons. In regards to this undertaking, the UNDP condemns:

The irony of humanity spending billions of dollars in exploring thepotential for life on other planets would be powerful and tragicif atthe same time we allow the destruction of life and human capabilities onplanet Earth for want of far less demanding technologies: theinfrastructure to deliver clean water and sanitation to all. Providing a glassof clean water and a toilet may be challenging, but it is not rocketscience.125

122Watkins 3.123Watkins 61.124Watkins 8.125Watkins 4.


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Appendix A

Ugandan women waving from beside their new water well.Source: Esther Havens, charitywater.org


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Appendix B

Figure 1Often times, sub-Saharan Africans must share their water sources with animals.

Source: charitywater.org

Figure 2A woman in Ethiopia collects contaminated water.

Source: Water.org


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Appendix C

The countries shaded in red account for the region of sub-Saharan Africa.Source: b-slaglobal10.wikispaces.com


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Appendix D

Millennium Development Goals

Goal 1: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger

Target 1: Halve, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of the people whose income isless than $1 a dayTarget 2: Halve, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people who suffer fromhunger

Goal 2: Achieve universal primary education

Target 3: Ensure that, by 2015, children everywhere, boys and girls alike, will be able tocomplete a full course of primary schooling

Goal 3: Promote gender equality and empower womenTarget 4: Eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education, preferable by2005, and in all levels of education no later than 2015

Goal 4: Reduce child mortality

Target 5: Reduce by two-thirds, between 1990 and 2015, the maternal mortality ratio

Goal 5: Improve maternal health

Target 6: Reduce by three-quarters, between 1990 and 2015, the maternal mortality ratio

Goal 6: Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases

Target 7: Have halted by 2015 and begun to reduce the spread of HIV/AIDSTarget 8: Have halted by 2015 and begun to reverse the incidence of malaria and othermajor diseases

Goal 7: Ensure environmental sustainability

Target 9: Integrate the principles of sustainable development into country policies andprograms and reverse the loss of environmental resourcesTarget 10: Halve, by 2015, the proportion of people without sustainable access to safedrinking water and sanitationTarget 11: By 2020, to have achieved a significant improvement in the lives of at least100 million slum dwellers

Goal 8: Develop a global partnership for development

Source: Human Development Report 2006, hdr.undp.org


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Appendix E

From the Field: Health

I turn on the tap and mud comes out, reports Scott Harrison, founder of charity:

water. This is your water? he asks. Youve got to be kidding me. You must be.

Harrison is with Dominic Mosa in the laundry room of Mosas health clinic in rural

Kenya. The health clinic serves a population of about 30,000 people, however, its water

is piped up from a muddy river about half a mile away. Even though the clinic does its

best to provide good care and medications to its patients, the disease-ridden water

undermines them. When the water pump breaks, the clinic must force patients to bring

their own Jerry cans of water with them before they can receive treatment. Citizens

within a twenty-mile radius of Mosas clinic rely on its doctors and resources, but the

clinic lacks the most basic ingredient for good healthsafe water. Mosas clinic presents

a downward spiral people for in his communityespecially to the sixty percent who are

sick at any given time: they come to him with water-related illnesses, but his clinic does

not have the water-related resources to cure them.

Source: Scott Harrison, From the Field: Kenya, charitywater.org.


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Appendix F

This is an Arbaloo, one type of improved sanitation facility. Arborloos are a portable

latrine design where a shallow pit has a slab and structure over it. After a year, when thepit has filled with waste and additional compost, the latrine can be relocated and a treeplanted above the well-fertilized pit.

Source: Water.org


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Appendix G

Throughout the developing world, children are often observed to suffer from both

malnutrition and diarrhea. This is because an estimated fifty percent of malnutrition is

associated with repeated diarrhea or intestinal nematode infections as a result of unsafeand insufficient WASH. According to the World Health Organization, one in four

children in SSA are affected by malnutrition due to unsafe water. These children have

skinny, spindly arms, yet fat bellies. This is because all of the food they eat sits in their

stomach, but because of diarrhea, when the food leaves, it leaves so quickly that the

intestines cannot pull the nutrients out of it. Therefore, all of the nutrients children eat

flow right out of their body, leaving them severely malnourished.

Figure 1

MalnutritionSource: charitywater.org

Youll see a bunch of kids running around here with big sores on their feet. They come

from Jiggers, a worm that attaches itself to the skin, boroughs in the skin, and lays eggs.

If you dont dig them out, they develop into mature worms and go in deeper until finally,

you get these big sores and ulcers in your feet. Youll see them start on the toe and just

grow around the toe and then jump across to the next toe until finally the kids canthardly walk; and the Jiggers start on their knees and you can sometimes see scars and

sores on the kids knees because they havent been able to walk on their feet anymore and

theyve got to walk on their knees. If theyre not washed and cleaned, they get worse and

worse. The solution isnt real difficult: the kids need to be cleaning their feet every night

before they go to bed, and you know, it doesnt happen when theres not enough water,

even for cooking and washing. The feet dont get washed; theyre the last things that are

going to get washed.

Figure 2Jim Hocking, founder of the organization Integrated Community Development

International, discusses the prevalence of a parasitic worm called Jiggers in the CentralAfrican Republic.Source: icdi.org


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Appendix H

Trachoma is a contagious eye infection, referred to as a passport to poverty by the

UNDP. The trachoma infection causes a sticky eye discharge with soreness and swelling

of the eyelids. After repeated infections, scarring of the inner eyelids occurs which canlead to thrichiasis, where the eyelashes turn inwards. These then rub on the eye, scarring

the cornea and causing blindness. As the disease progresses, people lose their ability to

work and receive an education, and they depend on care from family members. It can be

spread, especially among young children, by flies, fingers and clothing coming into

contact with infected eyes, thus spreading the infection to others peoples eyes. When

asked how trachoma affected her ability to work, a woman suffering the disease in SSA

replied: My lids are biting like a dog and scratching like a thorn. Can you stand on a

thorn? Imagine you have a thorn in your foot that you cant get outthen try talking of

work. Transmission can be reduced, and therefore the infection can be eliminated, by

improved facial cleanliness, fly control, and access to adequate and improved WASH

facilities.

Figure 1Trachoma

Source: Human Development Report 2006, wateraid.org

Caring for individuals with HIV/AIDS requires access to safe water. HIV/AIDS patients

have compromised immune systems and are therefore more prone to common illnesses

and diseases, especially diarrhea and water-washed diseases, which are primarily caused

by unsafe water; and the patients are unable to walk to the long distances to obtain water,

which many of their prescribed medications require in order to be effective. It is

important to note that in general, WHO recommends a minimum intake of twenty liters

of water per person, per day, but people with HIV can need over one hundred liters a day

to remain as healthy as possible. At the community level, the fight against HIV/AIDSmust include clean water initiatives in order to prolong lives, improve health, and render

medications more effective.

Figure 2HIV/AIDS

Source: lifewater.org


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Appendix I

A balancing act: an Ethiopian woman balances a full 40-pound container of water on herback as she prepares to tie her shawl for the journey home from a water source.

Source: Water.org


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Appendix J

Question:Can you explain Water For Peoples strategy in focusing on sustainable, long-termprojects rather than the quick-solution, smaller-scale projects?

Answer: With Water For People, our mission has evolved. Were one of the organizations thatrecognized early on in the game that the typical development model is really broken. We want to do

good, but were ultimately accountable to our donors, not our customers. This is a weird dynamic

that doesnt allow us to learn from our failures and mistakes. Were shifting to sustainability. Were

shifting our way of looking and monitoring/evaluating to a learning focus so we dont keep making

the same mistakes. The way our strategy is evolving, into the Everyone program, is really all about

systems. We need to ensure that the system works so that everyone gets water, but we cant be

directly involved in the process, because then the project wont be successful (because it wont be

sustainable). The ownership and accountability wont be in place. What were looking at is a way to

get African governments more engaged, private sectors more engaged, etc. What were doing is

working with a business development service providers, they then provide businesses that want to

expand their services into sanitation improvement. Were taking a very different approach than just

building a toilet were working with local banks, small businesses, local businesses, etc. Were

showing them different technologies they can use to reduce some of the barriers that are there for the

civil sector. Whats happening is that hopefully, the systems get built, but theyre all led and built up

locally. We only want to facilitate and help coordinate, a much different approach than directservice. Hopefully, its a lot more sustainable. And hopefully scalable, businesses are trying to find

markets. Why does everyone have a cell phone? When I first saw a cell phone, it was bigger than

your Macbook! There were 100 in all of Rwanda. Now, 15 years later, there are cell phones for

everyone, even in Rwanda. Companies got in the market, they started making profits, and then

thought, We need to go and sell these phones to poor people. They werent fancy products, but

sooner or later, everyone had a cell phone. Businesses need to get growth. With water its a little

different, but I think we can find models that work quite similarly. A lot of other organizations are

not working like this. Its really interesting; people are going to move in this direction. Were still

very engaged in day to day activities, controlling relationship, hands on help, but there is no way that

this kind of model can scale. No one has the interest to go and scope out the ways to make that scale.

Source: Personal Interview, John Sauer, 22 Dec. 2011


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