An introduction to the water sanitation crisis in Africa

For the majority of people, you wake up in the morning, you turn on the tap and there you have readily available clean and safe water at your disposal, no purification is needed, no two mile trek is required. There is no need to worry about where you will go to go to the toilet.  For these people it is normal, they do not question it, they do not think anything of it. However, for many people in Africa this is not the case. Firstly, there is the burden of having to travel thousands of metres to access a water supply, not 10 feet into your kitchen or bathroom. But for these people as well as the distance, there is the uncertainty, the uncertainty that this water you are going to drink, to carry out your daily activities, may actually be a serious burden to your health, but they have no choice, these people have to drink this water. There is also the humiliation of public defecation and with public defecation brings more problems. The issue of contamination of water sources from this open defecation is also a serious problem.

Water and sanitation is one of the most pressing issues currently faced across the continent of Africa and governments have found this to be a major threat to their populations, however granting access is a serious issue (Salami et al, 2014). Water sanitation is directly linked to the health and welfare of populations. Without access to safe water, the likelihood of falling ill to waterborne diseases is exceptionally high (The World Bank 1976; Banerjee and Morella, 1973). Globally, nearly 2.5 billion people are without access to safe water sources and sanitation (Septien, 2015) .

Access to safe water is a serious issue for Africa, however since the establishment of the millennium development goals, there has been a clear divide on the continent. Despite being relatively close on a geographical basis, on a developmental basis it is clear that North Africa is making much greater progress than sub-Saharan Africa. The UN (2012) note that North Africa has a coverage of 92%, whereas sub-Saharan Africa has only 62% with over 783 million people in sub-Saharan Africa lacking access to an upgraded water source. They further state that sub-Saharan Africa only has 30% access to sanitary water conditions, therefore with 70% of the population lacking access to sanitary water, waterborne diseases are highly likely. In North Africa there are much higher rates of rainfall, therefore safe, potable water is more readily available.

A report carried out by the WHO and UNICEF (2015b) showed that sub-Saharan Africa was well below its target on sanitation coverage, with only 30% coverage, under half the target set out in the millennium development goals of 62%. This low coverage of water sanitation effects are evidenced as this lack of access accounts for over a million worldwide preventable deaths annually (Montgomery, Batram, & Elimelech, 2009), there is around 500 deaths daily in Sub-Saharan Africa directly caused by poor access to safe water (UNICEF). It is estimated that over 20% of the sub-Saharan African population has no toilet to defecate in, this has to be done outside and with 36 of the 69 countries that are off track to meet the MDG target (Nansubuga et al, 2016), serious work needs to be undertaken. Africa, and especially Sub-Saharan Africa are well below meeting their targets for sanitation.

This first blog has looked at a general overview of the sanitation problem faced in Africa. Throughout the duration of this blog, I will look at different aspects of sanitation in Africa and assess the efforts made to help with its success and for it to reach its targets.