Globally, 780 million people do not have access to an improved water source; An estimated 2.5 billion people lack access to improved sanitation (more than 35% of the world’s population). Contaminated water and poor sanitation are linked to transmission of diseases such as cholera, diarrhoea, dysentery, hepatitis A, typhoid, and polio. Absent, inadequate, or inappropriately managed water and sanitation services expose individuals to preventable health risks.
Without water, there can be no human existence. While easy and cheap access to clean water is taken for granted in developed and many developing regions like Africa.
The United Nations Sustainable Development Goal of ensuring access to clean water and sanitation for all by 2030 is an ambitious target for Africa. Despite steps forward over the past few years, Africa is still lagging far behind.
World Health Organisation (2006) stated that, in 2004, only 16% of people in sub-Saharan Africa had access to drinking water through a household connection (an indoor tap or a tap in the yard).
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The continent access to water supply and sanitation has improved, but the region lags behind all other developing regions: access to safe drinking water has increased from 49% in 1990 to 60% in 2008, while in the same time span the access to improved sanitation has only risen from 28% to 31%. Around 2.5 billion people in developing countries do not have access to basic sanitation.
Social Inequities
The social and economic effects caused by a lack of clean water are often the highest priorities of African communities when they speak of their own development. With informal settlements and slums generally having lower levels of access than other parts of the city.
Due to crowding and other factors, slums can thus become a nexus for water and sanitation-related infectious disease transmission. Rising populations in Africa are driving demand for water. The World Health Organization has shown this in economic terms: for every $1 invested in water and sanitation, there is an economic return of between $3 and $34!
Sanitation Gap
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Health risks are often exacerbated by poor sanitation.
Diseases due to poor drinking-water access, unimproved sanitation, and poor hygiene practices cause 4.0% of all deaths and 5.7% of all disability or ill health in the world. About 80% of urban dwellers have access to piped drinking water and 96% have access to improved drinking water sources.
However, often the bacteriological quality of this water remains poor; more than 50% of urban residents in developing countries are still affected at one time or another by diseases related to insufficient access to safe drinking-water and improved sanitation.
In countries in sub-Saharan Africa with the best water coverage rates, as many as 1 in 4 people still lack adequate sanitation. Contaminated water can transmit diseases such as diarrhoea, cholera, dysentery, typhoid and polio.
Health costs associated with waterborne diseases such as malaria, diarrhoea, and worm infections represent more than one third of the income of poor households in sub-Saharan Africa.
Similarly, Typhoid fever is also ravishing poorer countries or areas, especially in Northern and Western Africa, and is a disease that once again springs from contaminated water, and even from food fertilized by human excreta (soil easily becomes contaminated from poor sanitation).
More deaths occur among children under 2 years of age living in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. It is reported that 115 people in Africa die every hour from diseases linked to poor sanitation, poor hygiene, and contaminated water.
Waste Management
The urban solid waste disposal is another sanitation-related challenge. Recent estimates also suggest that cities generate 1.3 billion tonnes of solid waste per year, a figure expected to rise to 2.2 billion tonnes by 2025.
Failure to adequately collect and dispose of solid waste presents can increase the proliferation of disease-carrying vectors, such as rodents and insects. These risks can be exacerbated by other urban conditions, such as overcrowding.
For the last few decades, dry or low-water sanitation has been gaining attention with the emergence of sustainable and low-cost sanitation. The waste can be processed directly on-site, or collected and transported to the processing plant.
Diverse products can be obtained after processing, such as water, compost, fertilisers, soil conditioners, biofuel and biogas. Rural residents are often worse off than urban residents when it comes to lack of access to water and sanitation, and funding is uneven and insufficient in the area, according to UNICEF.
Most commonly used low-cost waste disposal options in Africa are:
- Pit latrines: the human excreta is collected in a pit located directly below the toilet.
- Urine diversion dry toilets: the waste is separated into two different compartments.
- Pour flush toilets: this uses a small amount of water 0.5 to two litres, to flush away the excreta and for anal cleansing.
Existing Innovations
Sustainable sanitation solutions for poor communities has the potential to solve a range of social and environmental challenges. But they can do more. They can also be implemented in developed areas as a more sustainable practice compared to the classical sewage system.
Few groundbreaking initiatives in Africa;
- The development of the dehydration asteurisation machine. This enables faecal sludge from ventilated improved pit latrines to be processed. The machine is able to dry and pasteurise the sludge using infrared radiation. The product can then be safely used in agriculture.
- Another promising project is the use of black soldier fly larvae for faecal material degradation. After degradation, the larvae, which are rich in fatty acids and proteins, can be used for poultry feed or for biodiesel production.
- Lastly, a project that focuses on the treatment of urine to obtain reused water and fertiliser.
The Way to Go
The Global Goal 6 aims to ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all by 2030. International bodies and policy makers responsible for water and sanitation programmes should take note that a common intervention approach will not be favourable for all countries in Africa rather; interventions should be designed to meet the peculiar needs of specific countries.
Access to water and sanitation facilities in Africa is a complex and multifaceted issue that needs to be tackled holistically, taking into consideration interdisciplinary research and policy interventions covering environment, culture, economics and human behaviour.
The renewed enthusiasm for Africa’s economic prospects, however, should ensure that investment increases to improve sanitation and access to drinking water, investment in management of freshwater ecosystems and sanitation facilities at a local level in several developing countries within the African continent.
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