There are 5 main challenges of WASH, and today we will delve into one very important one: Physical Landscape. As mentioned in my previous blog, a safe WASH condition is essential for human health and plays a key role in building up livelihoods including adequate sanitation and creating sustainable economies and healthy environments.
Africa is the world's second-driest continent besides Australia (UN, 2014). The distribution of freshwater in Africa is highly uneven across regions, mostly because of the variability of rainfall in different climatic zones. Precipitation patterns are directly linked to the intertropical convergence zone (ITCZ). The ITCZ's position changes throughout the year and in Africa, it migrates latitudinally on a seasonal basis creating the annual alteration of wet and dry seasons in Africa.
Watch this video: Explaining the ITCZ in Africa
Physical water scarcity in Africa
As Rijisberman puts it, it is surprisingly difficult to determine whether water is actually scarce in the physical sense at a global scale (a supply problem), or if it is available but should be better used (a demand problem). In North Africa, water is physically scarce due to it being densely populated and arid with estimated water availabilities under 1000m3/capita/year. It is commonly assumed that any water scarcity means insufficient water for domestic use, however, that is not always the case. 50L/capita/year is the minimum requirement which is higher than the domestic requirement of 20m3/capita/year. Strictly speaking, people lacking access to water and sanitation are not necessarily affected by water scarcity in the physical sense, but more so because of poor management.
However, Fig 2. shows us there is a strong correlation between access to basic water services and water supply in the form of precipitation and groundwater. This suggests that water supply may not have a direct impact on the lack of access to water, but it is still an important factor because areas with abundant physical water supplies will have more access to water despite management issues as the level of water stress is determined by freshwater withdrawal as a proportion of available freshwater resources (UN SDG 6). Therefore, for semi-arid and arid areas there is less margin of error, hence, good management of water is more important. (FAO; Rahman, 2021) shows how a tropical country like Malaysia has a much higher rate of access to water and sanitation services despite existing water management issues.
Although precipitation makes a significant impact in determining how freshwater is distributed across Africa which directly affects the rate of access to water and sanitation services, it is also important to keep in mind other factors such as the drainage systems and geology which could determine how difficult it may be to build infrastructures to access water supplies. These factors act alongside human-induced factors to determine the level of water and sanitation provision in Africa.
Hello everyone. Welcome to my blog on water and sanitation in Africa! Why water and sanitation? For most of us living in developed countries such as the UK, access to water is so convenient that we never really have to think about how to acquire it. Water supply issues and challenges seem distant. However, not everyone has the luxury of a constant and undisrupted water supply. In Mitlin et al. (2019) , findings show that although UNICEF and the World Health Organization reported back in 2015 that more than 90% of the world's population used improved drinking water sources, more recent research suggests a much lower percentage, especially in the Global South. The research paper shows that access amongst cities in Sub-Saharan Africa were among the lowest with 22% of households having access to piped water. Fig 1. % of the world's population with access to safely managed drinking water in comparison to different regions of Africa What is 'water and sanitation'? We will beg
The topic of water and sanitation brings together not only in theory but also in practice people from both private and public sectors. Urban sanitation and its challenges are extremely complex. Poor and inadequate sanitation causes an annual economic loss between 1 percent and 2.5 percent of GDP for 18 African countries (World Bank, 2022 ). This shows governments that these costs must be addressed for the country to grow sustainably, hence, it proves how inextricably tied water and sanitation challenges are to political and socio-economic factors. Poo power & Sani-preneurs 'Flying toilets' are bags of human feces that fill the streets of Nairobi's slums. They are the products of a serious shortage of sanitation services and proper sewage systems. In recent years, these sanitation problems have gained attention in private sectors attracting entrepreneurial approaches to solutions and birthed 'sani-preneur' initiatives (EY, 2020) . Dealing with Kibera's flying
UN SDG 6 which focuses on ensuring access to water and sanitation for all has been mentioned a few times in my previous blogs. Target 6.2 specifically says 'by 2030, achieve access to adequate and equitable sanitation and hygiene for all and end open defecation, paying special attention to the needs of women and girls and those in vulnerable situations. In many societies across the world, women have primary responsibilities in household management which include the management of household water supply and sanitation (UN, 2006) . Despite women being very knowledgeable and important in the actions revolving around water and sanitation management, they are often under-represented in decision-making roles ( Kameri-Mbote, 2006 ; ADB, 2006 ). In the case of Kenya, only an average of 37% of top-level staff were women across six national and county sanitation-related institutions (WSUP, 2020) . WaterAid Explains: What has water got to do with gender equality? Feminine realities of WASH
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