Memorandum submitted by HelpAge International
HelpAge International (HAI), working in partnership
with Help The Aged, welcomes the invitation of the International
Development Committee (IDC) to make a submission of evidence to
the inquiry on water and sanitation. HelpAge International is
a global network of not-for-profit organisations with a mission
to work with and for disadvantaged older people worldwide to achieve
a lasting improvement in the quality of their lives. HelpAge International
has over 20 years direct experience of working with disadvantaged
older women and men worldwide, including improving delivery of
water and sanitation services.
Drawing the International Development Select
Committee members' attention to the evidence presented in the
attached Memorandum and the attached HelpAge International paper
to be presented at the 32nd WEDC International Conference in Sri
Lanka in November 2006, Access for all: securing older people's
access to water and sanitation, HelpAge International makes
the following recommendations that the International Development
Committee:
1. Strongly recommends that UK Department
for International Development ensure that older people's needs
and issues are included and addressed in their own policies and
practices and in those of the partners that they fund. Indicators
and measurement of MDG achievements relating to water and sanitation
must be disaggregated by age, gender and disability to ensure
that the needs of vulnerable groups, such as poor older people
and those with disabilities, are met.
2. Strongly recommends that the UK Department
for International Development support national governments though
long term predictable financing and technical assistance to resource
and implement a basic package of state provided social protection
measures, including universal social (non-contributory) pensions,
within national poverty-reduction strategies, to ensure that older
people and other vulnerable groups can afford safe water where
they have to pay for it.
3. Strongly advises that the UK Department
for International Development DFID ensures that development of
innovative technologies is part of its doubling of research funding
as promised in the 2006 White Paper, and addresses the specific
requirements of older people and other vulnerable groups.
4. Strongly recommends that the UK Department
for International Development more consistently promote and work
in partnership with governments, researchers and the development
community to ensure that data on who has access to water and sanitation
facilities is collected and disaggregated at national and international
level by age and gender to enable policy makers and programme
developers to design interventions that focus on improving access
for older people and other vulnerable groups.
5. Strongly recommends that that the UK
Department for International Development recognise and support
the role that civil society, including older people's committees,
and NGOs have in monitoring the delivery of water and sanitation
services, supporting the poorest to claim their entitlements,
advancing state accountability and contributing to the creation
of demand-led development that is based on rights and equity.
We hope the information contained herein is
useful. Should you require any further information please do not
hesitate to contact us.
INTRODUCTION
1. This Memorandum sets out HelpAge International's
(HAI) concerns and evidence in response to the International Development
Committee's request for evidence to the inquiry on water and sanitation.
Older women and men[187]
in the developing world are a clear example of the `unserved'
for water and sanitation. Older women and men are amongst the
poorest of the chronically poor. Water insecurity is a major source
of stress and expense for poor older people who, due to a combination
of factors including distance, cost, design of latrines and unsuitability
of water points, are often unserved by existing services and facilities.
This submission addresses the growing impact of population ageing
in developing countries, the implications for providing access
to all and delivering on the MDGs by 2015 and how DFID can promote
more equitable access for those who are unserved by existing services.
2. As a signatory of the International Covenant
on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the UK Government is
committed to the progressive realisation of the right to water
(articles 11 and 12) through international and technical assistance.
Older people are recognised as a particular vulnerable group in
relation to access to safe water and sanitation in the Committee
on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights' General Comment No. 15
(2002) on the right to water.
3. As a signatory to the Political Declaration
of the Madrid International Plan on Ageing 2002, the UK Government
has committed itself to "the task of effectively incorporating
ageing within social and economic strategies, policies and action"
(article 8).
4. In its 2006 white paper, the UK Government
committed to working with civil society to help them demand better
access to water and sanitation, including simple and affordable
technology.
5. This recognition and commitment to addressing
the needs and rights of older people must be better reflected
in DFID's policy and practice if the progress is to be made in
achieving the MDG on access to safe water and sanitation.
HELPAGE
INTERNATIONAL
6. HelpAge International is a global network
of not-for-profit organisations with a mission to work with and
for disadvantaged older people worldwide to achieve a lasting
improvement in the quality of their lives. With our network of
partner organisations we support older people to become active
participants in development and aim to mainstream ageing as a
development issue into policies and programmes for poverty reduction,
HIV/AIDS, human rights and emergency assistance around the world.
This submission is based on HelpAge International's 20 years practical,
research and policy experience of working with disadvantaged older
women and men around the world and 10 years experience in supporting
them in their role as primary caregivers of orphaned and vulnerable
children, largely as a result of the impacts of the AIDS epidemic.
THE IMPACT
OF AGEING
AND ACHIEVING
THE MDGS
Recommendation
7. DFID should ensure that older people's
needs and issues are included and addressed in their own policies
and practices and in those of the partners that they fund. Indicators
and measurement of MDG achievements relating to water and sanitation
must be disaggregated by age, gender and disability to ensure
that the needs of vulnerable groups, such as poor older people
and those with disabilities, are met.
Rationale
8. If progress is to be made on the MDG
targets for water and sanitation, making water and sanitation
services available to poor older people is crucial. Older women
and men make up on average between 5-8% of populations of least
developed countries and often care for grandchildren and ill children
with HIV/AIDS.[188]
9. Older people disproportionately experience
poverty due to lack of income security, inadequate family or social
support and poor health associated with ageing and difficulties
in accessing health care.[189]
Neglect, abuse and discrimination compound their poverty.
10. Already more than 10% of those living
on less than a dollar a day are over 60. According to the
UN by 2015 there will be approximately 64 million people over
60 living in Africa, a rise of 34% of the number in 2005. In
Asia there will be 508.5 million people over 60, a rise of 39%
of the number in 2005. As population ageing accelerates, the
number of older people living in poverty is likely to increase.
Older people often do not benefit from development interventions,
including water and sanitation services, because they are the
hardest to reach since they live in rural areas, face physical
constraints and literacy difficulties. They are discriminated
against on the basis of age, gender, deemed economically invalid
and denied their right to services.
11. Older women tend to be amongst the poorest
in society. They are less likely than men to remarry after widowhood,
tend to live longer than men, are often discriminated against
in inheritance practices, are less likely to have accumulated
assets over their life time and are less likely to have worked
in the formal sector.
12. As populations in developing countries
age, interventions on the financing and provision for water and
sanitation in line with MDG goals must be adjusted to ensure that
older people benefit from the global commitment to halve the numbers
of those with no access to safe water and sanitation.
THE COST
OF WATER
PREVENTS EQUITABLE
ACCESS
Recommendation
13. DFID should commit long term predictable
financing and technical assistance to resource and implement a
basic package of state provided social protection measures, including
universal non-contributory pensions, within national poverty-reduction
strategies, to ensure that older people and other vulnerable groups
can afford safe water where they have to pay for it.
Rationale
14. Payment for water is often prohibitive
for older people, 80% of whom in developing countries have no
regular income. Evidence shows that where older people need to
pay for water, they have to spend a sizeable amount of their income
on it, whether this comes from pensions, other cash transfers
or from other sources. This financial burden is particularly acute
for women. Public services that subsidise the cost of water for
those on low or no incomes increase gender equitable access as
well as access for other vulnerable groups, including older and
disabled people.
15. In Kenya, a needs assessment carried
out by HAI and HelpAge Kenya in April 2005 in Ngando Slum, Nairobi,
Kenya, highlighted lack of access to safe water as one of the
older people's main concerns. At that time there were no water
points in Ngando and residents had to buy water from water vendors
at a cost of about 50% of their daily income. The water was then
reused several times posing a health hazard to family members.
16. Regular, predictable cash transfers,
such as social (non-contributory) pensions, enable older people
to cover expenses for their basic needs. The recent White Paper
on Eliminating World Poverty recognised that cash transfers have
"huge benefits" for poor people and help them access
other services, such as health and education. Regular income in
the form of cash transfers reduces the stress and anxiety created
by water insecurity and restores older people's dignity by reducing
their reliance on family members. For example, a study of expenditure
of social pensions in South Africa showed that older women in
Claremont, a peri-urban area near Durban, spent 20% of their pension
on water, the same as on food.
17. Older women disproportionately benefit
from social pensions since they tend to live longer than men,
are less likely to have accrued assets or savings and so provision
of cash transfers help ensure more equitable access to services
such as water and sanitation provision.
18. It is not only the recipients of social
pensions who benefit. Research has shown that people in households
receiving a social pension are 18% less likely to be poor in Brazil
and 12.5% less likely than people in households who do not receive
one. Social pensions enable older people and those with whom they
live access the services to which they are entitled such as health
care and education as well as water and sanitation.
INACCESSIBLE AND
DIFFICULT TO
USE FACILITIES
PREVENT EQUITABLE
ACCESS
Recommendation
19. DFID should ensure that development
of innovative technologies is part of its doubling of research
funding as promised in the 2006 White Paper, and addresses the
specific requirements of older people and other vulnerable groups.
Rationale
20. Older people may have difficultly in
walking long distances everyday to fetch water and carrying up
to 20 litres (the average weighing 20kg) on their heads on the
return journey. Mangalita Siamajele, from Zambia, didn't go to
school and so doesn't know how old she is but at maybe 60 found
the burden of fetching water draining. "I am so tired."
she said "Where I have come from is very far, walking with
20 litres on my head. I am old, I have a bad hip and am always
tired, carrying this bucket twice a day, I need to get home, I
need to rest."
21. HelpAge International's research in
Uganda revealed that the major sources of water vary from region
to region. In northern Uganda, older people access water from
boreholes constructed with support from development partners and
NGOs working in emergency areas. However, challenges of accessing
such water sources include long waiting (8 hours to collect a
20 litre Jeri can) and poor strength of older people to operate
the hand pump.
22. Direct action pumps that rely on the
strength of the operator and require physical effort are not suitable
for all older people and young children, although they are cheaper
to buy and operate than high lift hand pumps. There are number
of different types of pumps and older people's needs should be
taken into account when a community or those working with the
community decides which pump it should use. For example intermediate
and high lift piston hand pumps are designed so as to reduce,
by means of cranks or levers, the physical effort required when
pumping. Solar powered pumps are another suitable alternative.
23. The installation of water taps can reduce
queuing time and, because the flow of water is constant and faster.
Older people in Ghana reported to WaterAid that there is less
pushing and shoving where there are taps which makes collection
of water easier for them.
24. The needs and location of older people
households must be considered when choosing the location of new
water points and the most suitable type of pump for community
bore holes and wells. Water taps and pumps should be installed
wherever possible to reduce queuing time and the physical effort
needed to draw water. Pit latrines should be constructed with
a raised seat to enable older people and those with limited mobility
to use them more easily.
LACK OF
DISAGREGGATED DATA
PREVENTS EQUITABLE
ACCESS
Recommendation
25. DFID should support and work in partnership
with governments, researchers and the development community to
ensure that data on who has access to water and sanitation facilities
is collected and disaggregated at national and international level
by age and gender to enable policy makers and programme developers
to design interventions that focus on improving access for older
people and other vulnerable groups.
Rationale
26. Indicators to measure sustainable access
to improved water source and sanitation are limited to percentage
of the population. Data is disaggregated by rural / urban populations
but not be age or sex. This data does little to tell policymakers
and programme developers exactly who within the community has
access or not and therefore prevents them from developing appropriate
policies and interventions based on need. Vulnerable groups' access
to water and sanitation is made visible through the analysis and
dissemination of disaggregated data. Without this they remain
invisible and are not included in policy or programming.
27. Based on existing data, HelpAge International
estimates that approximately 60% of people over 60 in Uganda and
Bolivia, and 55% in Bangladesh, do not have access to improved
water or sanitation. This inequity in access to services must
be addressed through better data and subsequently more appropriate
programming.
COMMUNITY MONITORING
FOR MORE
EFFECTIVE SERVICES
Recommendation
28. DFID should recognise and support the
role that civil society, including older people's committees,
and NGOs have in monitoring the delivery of water and sanitation
services, supporting the poorest to claim their entitlements,
advancing state accountability and contributing to the creation
of demand-led development that is based on rights and equity.
Rationale
29. INGOs and their national and local partners
have an important role to play in both monitoring the delivery
of state services, including water and sanitation, and holding
governments to account, particularly at the local level. The monitoring
of services by those who are supposed to receive them can help
states design better delivery mechanisms, ensure that those who
are eligible receive their entitlements and create state provision
of development that is demand led.
30. Community monitoring of access to water
and sanitation would ensure the needs of the excluded and unserved
are monitored and addressed more effectively. For example, in
a village in Changara District of Tete Province in Mozambique,
older women who care for people living with HIV/AIDS and orphans
and vulnerable children were able to criticize community management
of a borehole through their older people's committee. Their complaints
of jostling and harassment by younger women when they tried to
collect water, cited as one of the ways that older women in particular
feel excluded and how their role as carers is made more difficult
(HAI, 2005c), were addressed with the younger women through the
committee.
31. Any scaling up of services requires
the active participation and collaboration of the community to
ensure equitable access and sustainability.
October 2006
187 Defined as 60+ Back
188
Roland Monasch and Fiona Clark, "Grandparents' growing
role as carers", Ageing and Development, HelpAge International,
Issue 16, June 2004. Back
189
Chronic Poverty Research Centre, The Chronic Poverty report
2004-05, Chronic Poverty Research Centre, 2004. Back
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