House of Commons - International Development

Select Committee on International Development Written Evidence

Memorandum submitted by Tearfund

INTRODUCTION

1. Tearfund is a UK-based Christian relief and development organisation working with local partners in over 60 countries worldwide. Tearfund is a member of the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) and a founder member of the Make Poverty History campaign. We welcome the opportunity to make a submission to the International Development Select Committee on the vital issues of water and sanitation.

2. Tearfund has been engaged in advocacy work on water and sanitation for six years. We have addressed our comments to most of the questions posed by the Committee and have based them on our research and policy work carried out in conjunction with many of our international partners.

3. The Committee is aware that currently a staggering 2.6 billion people lack access to basis sanitation and 1.1 billion lack access to safe water. The Committee has also noted that, based on current trends, most developing countries are not going to meet the Millennium Development Goal 7, target 10, on sanitation and that many of the poorest countries will not meet the water target. Tearfund believes that urgent international action is now required, as failure to meet these targets could undermine progress on all of the other MDGs.[46] It is not only necessary to reach the MDG targets globally but also nationally—ensuring that the poorest people, communities and countries are not left behind.

WATER SERVICE DELIVERY

4. Tearfund recognises that access to water is a human right, as set out in the UN Convention on Economic and Social Rights (and its supplementary discussion paper on water). This access does not necessarily have to be free, but should be affordable. It is important that all governments formally recognise this right as this can empower their citizens to call for improved provision and hold them to account when progress is not being made. We would therefore recommend that the UK Government also formally recognises the existence of a human right to water in order to encourage other governments to do the same, to take a step towards improving accountability and governance in the sector.

5. We also support the position, agreed by international governments at CSD 14 (the meeting of the Commission for Sustainable Development which took place in 2005), that national governments generally have the primary responsibility for ensuring access to water and sanitation for its citizens. Decisions about the best policies and actions to increase access should be taken at the country level, in consultation with all stakeholders, including local authorities, civil society groups and other service providers. We support DFID's attempts to reinforce country-led strategies and to champion direct budget support where appropriate.

6. It is estimated that if the MDG targets on water and sanitation are to be met, donors and developing countries should more than double spending from $14 billion to $30 billion per year. It is clear most countries will not make sufficient progress is they do not receive additional financial help. However, the amount of aid which DFID and other EU bilateral donors have given to water and sanitation has fallen over the past decade. The picture has improved slightly since 2002, but today's average EU contribution is $94 million per year—compared to $126 million in 1997. DFID's aid to the sector stood at $151 million in 2000, but had declined to $44.9 million by 2004.[47] We welcome DFID's recent White Paper commitment to double aid to the sector to $200 million per year by 2010-11 (although we note that this is in line with a commitment to double overall aid levels in a similar time frame). DFID now needs to meet or if possible exceed its spending commitment to water and sanitation, and to work with the EU and other donors to increase the international profile of the sector and to ensure that overall aid levels rise.

7. Aid not only needs to increase, but it needs to be better targeted at the countries which need it most. Least developed and low income countries currently receive less than 50% of donor grants to the water and sanitation sector. Just 10 countries received 48% of total international aid to the sector in 1997-2001: China, India, Vietnam, Peru, Morocco, Egypt, Mexico, Malaysia, Jordan, and the Palestinian-administered areas.[48] This clearly demonstrates that international aid is not being used as effectively as it could for helping the most off-track countries to achieve the MDG targets. We welcome the fact that DFID targets most of its aid to the countries which need it most. We hope that this trend continues and that it uses its influence within multilateral institutions, and with other bilateral donors, to ensure that the poorest countries receive at least 70% of all development aid.

8. The failure of many developing countries to deliver basic water and sanitation services has led some donors to strongly promote, and in some cases impose, private sector participation (PSP). Tearfund and WaterAid research[49] has shown that international private sector participation frequently does not tackle the underlying causes of the failure of government services to serve poor people. Whilst in some cases there can be benefits, these interventions often do not build up the capacity of national actors, do not promote civil society participation, and do not result in effective financial and institutional reform. The domestic and small-scale private sector has a more significant role to play, especially in manufacturing and even in service delivery. However, in both cases it is vital that the government has the capacity to set and monitor service delivery standards and to regulate service providers effectively.

9. Tearfund believes that no donor should pressurise developing countries to accept PSP in water services as a condition of aid, trade or debt relief, or should promote this idea exclusively in policy dialogues or via technical assistance to recipient governments. Instead they should promote inclusive dialogue about reform options at the country level. Donors such as DFID should also support the efforts of developing country governments to establish independent regulatory bodies that set standards and monitor the activities of all service providers.

SANITATION

10. "That 2.6 billion people around the world are forced to defecate in plastic bags, buckets, open pits, agricultural field and public places around their communities should generate a collective outcry for immediate, concerted efforts to expand access to improved sanitation facilities."[50]

11. Sanitation coverage figures reveal a hidden emergency. While some regions of the world are on track for meeting the water aspect of MDG Goal 7, target 10, the sanitation aspect of the target is currently off-track in all regions of the world. While many projects are described as water and sanitation interventions, in reality sanitation is often tagged on as an afterthought rather than being an integral part of the programme. Tearfund is currently carrying out research in conjunction with the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) which seeks to examine some of the blockages to improved sanitation at the international, national and local level and some of the reasons it is not receiving the funding it requires.[51] The key factors appear to be: a lack of understanding of the links between poor health and poor sanitation at the local level; cultural taboos; a lack of female voices in planning and decision making; and the lack of a clear institutional home for sanitation at the national level. Expensive infrastructure and technology are generally not required for improved sanitation and hygiene: donors such as UNICEF have demonstrated that community education and mobilisation are crucial if sustainable improvements in sanitation and hygiene are to be achieved. The UN Millennium Project Task Force on Water and Sanitation suggest that it could be instructive to consider how another "difficult" topic—HIV and AIDS, was freed from similar constraints and became a leading global health concern.

12. Given the lack of understanding and low profile of sanitation, it is likely to be marginalised when a demand-led approach to aid is adopted. When pursuing a country-led approach, DFID's policy dialogue with recipient governments is therefore particularly important for the sanitation sub-sector. As the OECD and DFID currently aggregate the amount of aid which goes to this sub-sector, it is difficult to ascertain exactly what contribution the UK Government and other donors are making to solving this problem. However, the WHO and UNICEF estimated in 2000 that alarmingly, although more than twice as many people lack access to basic sanitation than to safe water in Africa, sanitation attracts only one-eighth of the funding that water gets.[52] DFID's own Water Action Plan is weak on sanitation and does not identify any concrete steps for ensuring that this sector is particularly supported.

13. DFID should monitor aid flows and progress in the sanitation sub-sector and should give it particular attention in their regular reviews of the Water Action Plan. The UK should act as an international champion for sanitation and ensure that governments and donors listen to the voices of the poor and marginalised and dedicate more resources to education and community responses to the problem. DFID should also explore lessons learned from the successes in tackling the stigma around HIV and AIDS and should examine if they could be mirrored in the sanitation sector.

IMPROVING HEALTH AND EDUCATION THROUGH WATER AND SANITATION INTERVENTIONS

14. The links between water and sanitation and other social and economic development indicators could not be clearer. More than half the hospital beds in the world are filled with people suffering from water-related diseases, diseases which kill more than five million people every year.[53] A baby born in sub-Saharan Africa is 500 times more likely to die from diarrhoeal disease than one born in the developed world. The World Health Organisation has estimated the 443 million school days are lost annually worldwide due to diarrhoeal disease. The average distance that women in Africa and Asia travel to collect water is 6km, which takes them away from economically productive activity. Of the 120 million children not in school most are girls, and many of these are helping their mothers collect water, or do not want to attend school because sanitary conditions are not adequate.

15. However, most of these problems are not difficult to overcome. A recent cost-benefit analysis by the WHO found that each $1 invested in meeting the MDG target on water and sanitation would bring an economic return of between $3 and $34. If the targets are met $7.3 billion could be saved globally each year on health costs and adult working days gained because of less illness would be worth $750 million each year.[54] Improving a person's access to water reduces cases of diarrhoea by 25% and hygiene education and the promotion of hand-washing reduces cases by 45%.[55] It is clear that access to all basic social services needs to be improved simultaneously if gains in one sector are not to be undermined by a lack of progress in others. UNICEF has noted this and is campaigning for all schools to be provided with adequate water and sanitation facilities, along with hygiene-education programmes.

16. DFID has a good track record in supporting access to services, and is known as a lead donor in the health and education sectors (for example championing the Education Fast Track Initiative and the adoption of universal treatment target for HIV and AIDS). The fact that water and sanitation were included alongside health, education and social protection as the four key social services which will receive at least 50% of DFID's aid in future was also encouraging. However, the fact remains that health and education receive the lion's share of DFID's aid for social services, and there is little evidence of water and sanitation being mainstreamed into other DFID interventions.

17. DFID should continue to reduce its emphasis on individual sectors such as health, education or water and sanitation and should instead view each of them as essential component of the package of social services which must all be improved simultaneously if all of the MDG targets are to be met. It should consider each one equally in their policy dialogues with recipient governments and should do all they can to ensure that the international finance available to improving each sector is scaled-up concurrently.

WATER RESOURCE MANAGEMENT AND CLIMATE CHANGE

18. It is now clear that the world's climate is changing and poor communities, more reliant on subsistence agriculture and weather patterns and particularly dependent on natural resources, are already becoming more vulnerable due to climate change. Tearfund has documented the experiences of many of our partners in a wide variety of countries across the world, and each of them was able to give evidence of the impact that a changing climate is having on their lives and livelihoods[56] A change in the availability of water—either flood or drought—was frequently one of the first changes which alerted poor communities to the fact that the climate is changing. The Environmental Audit Select Committee recently noted that there is no way of knowing the environmental impacts of DFID's water policies. We support the Environmental Audit Select Committee's recommendation that DFID takes urgent steps to monitor the environmental impact of its water policies and that it report on these as part of it regular report on the Water Action Plan.

19. During the last century, water consumption increased six-fold—twice the rate of population growth. Allowing for increase in numbers, the UN Commission on Sustainable Development have calculated that two out of every three people will be living with water shortages by 2025; at the moment one-third experience periodic water shortages. It is often assumed that growing water scarcity is outside of human control. However, this is simply not the case. Scarcity is almost always caused by bad governance—a failure to manage water sustainably and justly. Therefore, helping low income countries to develop good governance and management of natural resources, including water, is one of the best ways to help them cope with, and adapt to, climate change.

20. All governments agreed at the World Summit for Sustainable Development in 2002 that they would start to put an Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM) Plan into place by 2005. The IWRM model takes into account all the different users of water (industry, eco-systems, domestic, agriculture etc) and seeks to coordinate the management of land, water (groundwater and surface water) and other environmental resources together. However, when the deadline passed only 12% of countries had actually fulfilled this commitment.[57] IWRM is a good model, but it should be carried out in a fully participatory manner and build on locally appropriate and traditional practices wherever possible. Tearfund partner EFICOR in India, argues that "despite ample and credible evidence of the value of traditional methods (eg rainwater harvesting) employed to obtain and conserve water within river basins, they continue to be marginalised and trivialised. It is time to mainstream these locally rooted strategies by incorporating them into policies and budgets at all levels."

21. DFID should be at the forefront of international efforts to support developing countries to develop and implement fully participatory IWRM plans, and should promote their development as an integral part of both disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation processes—especially if this will help to mobilise additional financial resources.

FINANCING AND AID INSTRUMENTS FOR WATER AND SANITATION

22. As noted in paragraph 5, donor support to build the capacity of southern governments to delivery and regulate water and sanitation services is important and we therefore generally support the trend towards direct budget support for a country's Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP), where appropriate, which has been championed by DFID. However, this approach should not be viewed as a panacea. DFID's own Water Action Plan (2004) notes that, despite the priority of water and sanitation for poor communities, the sector often lacks profile at the national and international level and frequently does not feature highly in PRSPs. Studies into the formulation of PRSPs have demonstrated that governments often have a very poor understanding of how gender and poverty are interrelated; that consultation with communities and women is often cursory; and that even where women were consulted, their concerns did not inform policy and spending priorities.[58] When water is included in PRSPs important aspects such as hygiene promotion and sanitation are generally not specifically identified as areas for action and funding. Operation and maintenance issues are also often neglected, and links between central government and decentralised authorities frequently do not receive much attention.

23. DFID should continue to encourage southern governments to develop PRSPs in a fully participatory manner, and should ensure that their policy dialogue at the national level helps governments to make the links between water, sanitation and other key drivers of poverty. DFID should also encourage recipient governments to put mechanisms in place to ensure that finance is available at the sub-national level, and should explore other ways in which it could support local authorities directly.

24. As responsibility for water and sanitation tends to be split between ministries or given to weak departments, it is important to establish a national dialogue where more powerful departments such as health and finance can be involved in delivering improved water and sanitation. Tearfund believes that one way for donors to do this is to encourage and support the development of a Sector Wide Approach (SWAP) at the national level. It is also important that southern governments develop comprehensive strategies and action plans for the sector, and vital that these plans include key actors such as local government bodies and civil society groups. The Education Fast Track Initiative (EFTI) seems to have been successful in encouraging governments to develop such plans in the education sector, as has the Three Ones principle in HIV and AIDS.[59] DFID should examine opportunities for delivering aid to governments via a SWAP wherever appropriate and should seek to apply best-practice from other social sectors to encourage governments to develop and implement effective and inclusive water and sanitation strategies and action plans at the national and sub-national level.

25. Whilst building state capacity to deliver and regulate water and sanitation services is vital, other sectors—particularly civil society organisations- can also play an important role in holding service providers to account and in sharing information about innovative and successful projects with other actors so that best practice can be scaled-up. Given DFID's current challenge of having to deliver much more aid without increasing head count (in accordance with the Gershon Report recommendations), we understand that delivering aid directly to civil society groups in the global south will become increasingly difficult. However, we recommend that DFID continues to examine new ways of supporting the development of civil society along with state bodies, and supports mechanisms for sharing best practice at the national and international level. Two possible examples are outlined below.

[60][61]

26. The EU launched its Water Initiative (EUWI) in 2002 as its "main contribution to the achievement of the MDG for drinking water and sanitation." Its main objectives are to reinforce political commitment to action; raise the profile of the sector; promote better water governance; promote better coordination and cooperation in the sector and catalyse additional funding. However, a Tearfund and WaterAid report published in December 2005[62] demonstrated that the EUWI had not yet succeeded in meeting any of these objectives. As a result of this report, the EU is currently carrying out a review of the initiative, as well as revising the terms of reference for the Initiative's Africa Working Group. Following this review, Tearfund believes it is vital that the EU does the following:

— Sets clear, measurable targets for the Initiative and reviews them regularly.

— Establishes a formal funding system for the Initiative to ensure Southern participation.

— Re-focuses its efforts on the countries most off-track in meeting the MDG targets.

— Ensures that only the trans-boundary component of the EUWI gets subsumed by the EU-Africa infrastructure partnership, and that a separate initiative focusing on the delivery of water and sanitation services to poor communities continues to function.

— Ensures that donors fully participate in country-led donor co-ordination mechanisms where they exist, and quickly establishes a country dialogue where they do not.

DFID should work to ensure that these steps are agreed by the EU as a matter of urgency.

27. As noted in the recent report by the UN Millennium Project Task Force on Water and Sanitation, the international system itself is poorly organised when it comes to responding to the international water and sanitation crisis. 24 UN bodies and a number of international water and sanitation networks and partnerships exist, but there is not single lead agency. UN-Water was established in 2003 to improve coordination between all of these bodies. However, Tearfund believes that a lead organisation also needs to be identified urgently, to act as an advocate for the sector internationally and put pressure on all parties to meet the MDG targets. UN-Water currently does not have a sufficient capacity to even carry out its co-ordination role effectively. It would a considerably larger staff and budget if it were also to be the lead agency. DFID should support the UN Millennium Project Task Force recommendation that UN-Water be strengthened and be given a broader mandate for leading international efforts to reach the water and sanitation target.

DFID'S ORGANISATIONAL CAPACITY FOR SUPPORT TO WATER AND SANITATION

28. As noted above, it is vital within the current aid climate that donors have a good policy dialogue with recipient governments to encourage a multi-stakeholder approach and to ensure that issues such as gender and sanitation are not marginalised. In its Water Action Plan, DFID states that making sure water issues figure prominently in policy discussions with its main partner countries is one of the three key elements of its strategy. Given this context, it is therefore very concerning that DFID's capacity to engage in this dialogue at the country level is very week. Whilst issues such as health, governance, economics, and education etc often have their own specialist advisers at the country level, there are relatively few infrastructure advisers, particularly in Africa, and these are responsible for other issues such as communications and transport, as well as water. Whist we welcome recent moves to strengthen DFID's policy capacity for water and sanitation, DFID must now demonstrate that these issues are important to the whole organisation and significantly increase its capacity to engage at the country level.

29. In order to improve water governance at the international and national level, it is vital that DFID makes detailed information about its support to the sector available on its website. It is not currently possible to find out how much DFID has spent on the sector and in which countries. The Environmental Audit Select Committee was recently extremely critical of DFID's website and Tearfund supports their recommendation that it be redesigned and that detailed information on DFID's aid transfers is more readily available and easy to find. The Committee also noted that environmental expertise was lacking at the national level and that DFID's capacity to carry out effective environmental screening needs to be urgently increased. These factors will also be important if water and sanitation interventions are to be effective at the country level. DFID should heed the recommendations made by the Environmental Audit Select Committee on its website and its environmental expertise and should implement them immediately.

30. DFID's current Water Action Plan is week and does not contain enough measurable and time-bound indicators. DFID should review its Water Action Plan and make it more robust.

SUMMARY OF RECOMMENDATIONS

At an institutional level

The UK Government should formally recognise the existence of a human right to water, and encourage other donors to do the same.

DFID needs to meet or exceed its spending targets to water and sanitation.

DFID should monitor aid flows and progress in the sanitation sub-sector and should give it particular attention in their regular reviews of the Water Action Plan.

DFID should also explore lessons learned from the successes in tackling the stigma around HIV and AIDS and should examine if they could be mirrored in the sanitation sector.

DFID should continue to reduce its emphasis on individual sectors such as health, education or water and sanitation and should instead view each of them as essential component of the package of social services which must all be improved simultaneously if all of the MDG targets are to be met. It should consider each one equally in their policy dialogues with recipient governments and should do all they can to ensure that the international finance available to improving each sector is scaled-up concurrently.

DFID should take urgent steps to monitor the environmental impact of its water policies and report on these as part of its regular report on the Water Action Plan.

DFID should continue to examine new ways of supporting the development of civil society along with state bodies, and support mechanisms for sharing best practice at the national and international level.

DFID must demonstrate that water and sanitation are institutional priorities and significantly increase its capacity to engage in policy dialogue at the country level.

DFID should heed the recommendations made by the Environmental Audit Select Committee on its website and its environmental expertise and should implement them immediately.

DFID should review its Water Action Plan and make it more robust.

At the country level

DFID should continue to reinforce country-led strategies as far as possible, and continue to champion direct budget support, where appropriate.

DFID should continue to encourage southern governments to develop PRSPs in a fully participatory manner, and should ensure that their policy dialogue at the national level helps governments to make the links between water, sanitation and other key drivers of poverty and to ensure that issues such as gender and sanitation are not marginalised.

DFID should encourage recipient governments to put mechanisms in place to ensure that finance is available at the sub-national level, and should explore other ways in which it could support local authorities directly.

DFID should examine opportunities for delivering aid to governments via a SWAP wherever appropriate and should seek to apply best-practice from other social sectors to encourage governments to develop and implement effective and inclusive water and sanitation strategies and action plans at the national and sub-national level.

Donors such as DFID should also support the efforts of developing country governments to establish independent regulatory bodies that set standards and monitor the activities of all service providers.

At the international level

DFID needs to work with the EU and other donors to increase the international profile of the sector and to ensure that overall levels of aid to the sector rise.

The UK should act as an international champion for the sanitation sub-sector and ensure that it is not marginalised in the global arena.

DFID should use its influence within multilateral institutions, and with other bilateral donors, to ensure that the poorest countries receive at least 70% of all development aid.

DFID should be at the forefront of international efforts to support developing countries to develop and implement fully participatory IWRM plans, and should promote their development as an integral part of both disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation processes—especially if this will help to mobilise additional financial resources.

DFID should work to ensure that the necessary steps to improve the EU Water Initiative, as outlined in paragraph 28, are agreed and acted on by the EU as a matter of urgency.

DFID should support the UN Millennium Project Task Force recommendation that UN-Water be strengthened and be given a broader mandate for leading international efforts to reach the water and sanitation target.

October 2006

46 DFID's Water Action Plan (2004) clearly demonstrates how access to water and sanitation can help progress towards all of the other MDG targets. Back

47 Figures taken from the OECD database and quoted in a Tearfund media report, Pipe Dreams (March 2006). Back

48 More details available in Making Every Drop Count (Tearfund, 2005). Back

49 Tearfund and WaterAid, (2003) New Rules, New Roles. Back

50 UN Millennium Project Task Force on Water and Sanitation (2005) p 32. Back

51 This research is being carried out in conjunction with Tearfund partners in Burkina Faso, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Madagascar and is due to be published in December 2006. We will send a copy of the report to the Committee when it has been completed. Back

52 WHO/UNICEF (2000). Global Water Supply and Sanitation Assessment. Back

53 UNEP, 2002. Back

54 As quoted in the final report of the UN Millennium Project Task Force on Water and Sanitation (2005) p 16. Back

55 Water, sanitation and hygiene interventions to reduce diarrhoea in less developed countries: a systematic review and meta-analysis Fewtrell L et al, Lancet Infection Diseases (2005). Back

56 Dried up, drowned out, Tearfund (2005). Back