Letter from Ramesh Singh, Chief Executive,
ActionAid International
VIETNAM INQUIRY—WATER
AND SANITATION
Further to my testimony to the International
Development Committee on 19 June 2007 I am writing to you with
additional general comments on water and sanitation.
In many developing countries the level of public
investment (tax revenues and development assistance) that go into
extending the infrastructure, connecting people up, is far below
necessary levels. The UN Human Development Report 2008 estimates
that water and sanitation infrastructure spending is only up to
0.5% of GDP, against a minimum target of at least 1% of GDP, in
most developing countries.
Charging for water should not be a barrier to
poor women and men consuming healthy levels. The World Health
Organisation and others say that 30-50 litres per person, per
day is necessary just to cover domestic uses of water—drinking,
cleaning, washing, and cooking. Poor people currently pay more
for water than the rich because they are least likely to be connected
to the infrastructure due to a lack of government investment Subsidies
for consumer charges need to be transparent—most subsidies
are actually captured by those connected to the infrastructure,
therefore excluding poor people from the benefits.
Most poor people in urban areas get most of
their water from the local private sector. In rural areas water
is largely self-supplied, from family or community wells, surface
or ground water, which is often contaminated. The key issue is
how the government regulates and facilitates the local private
sector in the delivery of public water services. There may also
be issues concerning the conditions imposed on government. For
example, a World Bank loan for infrastructure development might
require the involvement of the international private sector.
Sanitation presents further challenges: organic
and inorganic pollution, especially in urban areas; the degradation
of water environments, for example, the depletion of groundwater
due to over-abstraction as a result of irrigation is a common
problem. The contamination of surface and ground water with pesticides
and other chemicals used in agriculture and manufacturing often
exacerbate the situation. Most governments do not have a strong
Integrated Water Resources Management infrastructure that goes
right down to the river basin level yet successful IWRM is vital,
particularly in relation to tapping distant aquifers and river
basins to serve urban populations. However, Vietnam is different
because of the Mekong Basin which is being managed cross-border.
There are usually no budgets, no plan, and no
clearly accountable government agency for sanitation. Responsibility
is often fragmented amongst different ministries and agencies
within ministries. Globally, the Millennium Development Goal for
sanitation is more off-track than the one for water supply, though
that might not be true for Vietnam. Tackling sanitation effectively
requires a version of the three "ones"—one budget,
one accountable institution and one plan. A key issue here is
the division of responsibility between the state and individual
households. This is not always clear, but a good rule of thumb
is that government must provide the infrastructure to take away
sewage and solid waste, with households responsible for household-level
sanitation, such as the latrine or toilet Government regulation
is therefore needed for buildings, especially houses. However,
in urban slums this becomes problematic because most urban dwellers
are renters, and in many urban slums there is not even the land
space to build a toilet or latrine. In these cases the state has
to come forward with solutions, such as community-level toilet
blocs.
Access to water is a human right. It is essential
to look into constitutional and policy issues that may lead to
abuse of this right, for example, the way subsidies are set up,
the way prices are set, and the way certain communities, like
slum dwellers, are denied connection to the main pipeline because
of their illegal status.
I hope these remarks are useful for your inquiry.
Yours sincerely
Ramesh Singh
Chief Executive, ActionAid International
9 July 2007
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