Africa is a continent of astonishing potential. But if it is
to build the future its citizens deserve, we have to see increased effort to
remove the barriers holding it back. None is greater than poor sanitation - a
shadow hanging over the lives and prospects of hundreds of millions of people
on the continent and across the world.
Nearly one billion people globally are forced to defecate in
the open. As many have to live with inadequate sanitation. Both situations lead
to the contamination of water and food and the spread of disease. The costs –
human and economic – are huge which is why it is so disappointing that the
Millennium Development Goal on sanitation was the one furthest from being
achieved.
The impact on health of this failure is enormous. Diarrheal
diseases, caused overwhelmingly by poor sanitation and unsafe water, remains
one of the top ten causes of death worldwide according to the WHO, killing 1.5
million people in 2012.
The damage from a lack of sanitation goes far beyond health.
The lack of toilets puts the personal safety of girls and women at risk. It’s
one of the major reasons why so many girls drop out of school, robbing them of
an education and their communities of their talents.
It’s not just a human tragedy but a huge economic burden on
already hard-pressed countries. New research prepared by LIXIL and Oxford
Economics has put the annual cost of poor sanitation for low and middle income
countries at $222.9 billion. These cumulative costs include those from early
loss of life, providing health care and the impact on productivity of sickness.
It is the largest countries like India, the research shows,
which shoulder the highest national cost burden. But if you look at these costs
nation-by nation as a share of GDP to work out their impact on a society, then
countries from sub-Saharan Africa make up half the top ten. In Niger, poor
sanitation costs 2.7 per cent of GDP and the figure is nearly one per cent across the
continent as a whole. Africa simply can’t afford this loss.
Even more worrying is that the research shows these annual
costs for Africa have risen by 24.5 per cent in the last five years and now stand at
over $19 billion. It also underlines the terrible toll poor sanitation is
taking across the continent by revealing that premature deaths account for 75 per cent of these total costs in Africa compared to just 55 per cent globally.
This is why sanitation and hygiene must again figure high on
the agenda [this week] as Japanese and African heads of state gather in Nairobi
for the Tokyo International Conference on African Development and in Stockholm
as businesses, political leaders and others gather for World Water Week.
This complex challenge is made more difficult because
sanitation solutions used in developed world cannot be transplanted to the
slums or rural areas of Africa. The infrastructure is too costly to build and
maintain and too wasteful of resources. Water across many parts of the
continent, for example, is already scarce and becoming scarcer because of
climate change.
It is not all bleak news. Not long ago Bill Gates rightly
said not many of the smartest people were involved in finding sanitation
solutions for those in low income countries. That’s no longer the case, thanks
in part to the role he has played in pushing it up the global agenda.
I am proud that LIXIL is bringing all its experience as a
world-leader in water technology to help find solutions. With a wide variety of
partners, we are developing affordable and effective solutions which will meet
the needs of poorest communities.
We introduced, for example, the cost effective and hygienic
Safe Toilet (SaTo) products in 2013 and over one million have now been
installed in Africa, Asia and the Caribbean for as little as $2 dollars a unit.
They are helping transform sanitation and such is the demand and need, we aim
to have installed 20 million by 2020.
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Co-inventor Jim McHale
(right) field tests a new model of the SaTo
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Considerable progress has been made in recent years across
the industry in recognising the challenge. But there is no time to waste. Every
year the cost in human misery and lost prosperity keeps rising. Overcoming this
challenge requires even greater effort and co-operation from governments,
businesses, and civil society.
Governments must commit to national sanitation strategy with
stretching but achievable targets backed by increased funding – public, private
and a mix of both. National efforts must also include a new emphasis on education
so the citizen understands the need to use and look after sanitation facilities
when they are provided.
Innovation and partnership are absolutely critical. We need
more innovation in technology and delivery so we find new, affordable and
sustainable ways of bringing sanitation to those at the bottom of the pyramid.
This will be encouraged by more collaboration and public-private partnerships
so knowledge and experience is shared.
There are exciting developments going on in Africa and round
the world to provide sanitation to the communities who need it most. By
stepping up our collective efforts, we will remove a huge barrier to a better
future for this continent.
SOURCE CNBCAFRICA
