One of many paradoxes linked to the world's water crisis is that people living in the slums of Nairobi in Kenya pay more for their water than the inhabitants of New York. The slums have no public water supply so water has to be purchased from middlemen, who charge extortionate prices.
"The water crisis is more about poverty, the uneven distribution of power and poor water management than it is about the water itself," says chief advisor Henning Nøhr of the BFT Technical Advisory Services of the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Social problems
"The resources are unevenly distributed, and in poor areas people are suffering – not least women and children, who spend countless hours a day fetching water instead of tending their fields and going to school. This is why Danish development aid for the water sector is focussed on these poor areas," Nøhr explains.
He continues, "The social problems in Africa make it difficult to create a sustainable method of managing water. Introducing a water installation is not enough; it must also be maintained, and someone must finance that maintenance."
Climate and conflicts
In addition, climate changes may render clean water a scarce commodity in much of the world over the next 50 years, while existing conflicts due to a lack of water may escalate.
"Cities and industries are competing with the agriculture sector over the right to water resources; through irrigation agriculture actually accounts for about 90 percent of the world's water consumption. Conflicts arise between countries because rivers and lakes cross the man-made borders. These countries need to communicate more effectively," says Nøhr.
Pilot projects
Many countries, including Denmark, are working on achieving the UN goal to halve the number of people without access to water by 2015.
COWI is conducting three pilot projects for the World Bank regarding sustainable water supplies in poor residential areas in Egypt, Uganda and Tanzania where, as a new concept, development aid is based on the actual results produced by the implementing institutions.
"We are assisting the local water authorities in finding suitable towns and in arranging contracts with local contractors. This type of project should be pre-financed by the contractors through local loans and the World Bank is assisting with the repayments based on results achieved. This is how clean water is provided to poor people living in the cities," says project manager Søren Dreyer, COWI.By Eva Isager, jaje@cowi.com Published: 26.04.2007