Severe Water Stress is Imminent— Unless Water and Land Resources Are Managed More Effectively Now
Ghana Daily Graphic
Due to the close linkage and interdependence between water and health, nature, urbanization, energy and food, and their implications for poverty alleviation, water security has become a major issue of global concern— particularly as water supplies face increasing pressures from a growing population, industrialisation, urbanisation, agricultural intensification, water-intensive lifestyles and climate change.
According to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), forty-seven per cent of the global population could be living under severe water stress by the year 2050, a development that is bound to threaten the long-term viability of water-dependent projects and hinder the socio-economic development of nations.
According to OECD, available statistics indicate that the earth’s most valuable resource —fresh water— is being indiscriminately and rapidly polluted and depleted, with severe consequences for both the present and, more particularly, future generations.
This means that unless water and land resources are managed more effectively in the present decade and beyond than they have been in the past, to reverse the present trends of overconsumption, pollution, and rising threats from droughts and floods, human health and welfare, food security, industrial development and the ecosystems on which they depend, are all at risk.
The 1992 Earth summit in Rio de Janeiro unanimously adopted Agenda 21, a blueprint for sustainable development while the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the United Nations General Assembly Resolution 55/2 outlined 8 targets aimed at reducing poverty and promoting sustainable development.
Furthermore, the World Summit on Sustainable Development reaffirmed the commitment to Agenda 21 and MDGs.
Sustainable Development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs—and failure to protect and conserve the health of ecosystems such as fresh water bodies and forests is bound to negatively impact on global socio-economic development.
Sustainability, thus, requires limits on consumption levels of fresh water as well as limits on population because the bigger the population, the bigger the stress on freshwater ecosystems.
It has, therefore, been recommended that a set of actions be implemented at local, national and international levels, based on the four guiding principles of Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM), namely that fresh water is a finite and vulnerable resource, essential to sustain life, development and the environment; that water development and management should be based on a participatory approach, involving users, planners and policy-makers at all levels; that women should play a central part in the provision, management and safeguarding of water; and that water has an economic value in all its competing uses and should be recognized as an economic good.
These four, known as the Dublin principles, provided vital input to the June 1992 Rio UN Conference on Environment and Development, (UNCED) during which the celebration of the World Water Day was recommended and subsequently instituted in 1993 by the UN General Assembly to annually focus attention on the importance of freshwater and advocate the sustainable management of freshwater resources.
It has also been recommended that to ensure sustainable water development, government, policy makers, planners, industrialists and society, as a whole, should properly co-ordinate ecological approaches with the economic and social approaches to achieve a steady and accelerated economic development; higher living standards; improvement in public health; improvement in ecosystem health; strict law enforcement on natural resources conservation; and environmental protection.
Other recommendations are that multilateral agreements and global funding should be devoted to the protection and conservation of freshwater bodies, including transboundary river systems; conservation and sustainable use of natural resources— instead of outright exploitation— and the promotion of ways to re-use and recycle waste from one production process as inputs in another process to prevent the build-up of waste in the environment.
The others are the implementation of the National Rainwater Harvesting (RWH) policy and the development and enforcement of progressive public policy on water extraction and the monitoring of ground water.
In all these, the role of the Water Resources Commission (WRC) cannot be overemphasized.
WRC, established by an Act of Parliament (Act 522 of 1996) as the overall body responsible for water resources management in Ghana, ought to be reminded of its mandate to regulate and manage the sustainable utilization of water resources and to co-ordinate related policies in relation to them.
The writer is an Information Officer, Information Services Department.
Email: aristoncr@yahoo.com
- See more at: http://graphic.com.gh/features/features/44574-severe-water-stress-is-imminent-unless-water-and-land-resources-are-managed-more-effectively-now.html#sthash.EzH3YhpP.dpuf
Every child deserves clean water
Clean water and good environmental sanitation are essential for child survival.
In other words, increased access to clean water and sanitation are prerequisites for reducing infant mortality and improved maternal health.
However, even though Ghana is at the brink of achieving the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 7 on clean drinking water, the same can hardly be said of sanitation.
Indeed, several studies and reports have established that children in Ghana are affected by waterborne diseases such as diarrhoea, dysentery, cholera and typhoid fever which are spread mainly through the use of unsafe water.
The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 50 per cent of malnutrition is associated with repeated diarrhoea or intestinal worm infections as a result of unsafe water, inadequate sanitation or poor hygiene.
Globally, the statistics show that diarrhoea, a leading cause of death —1.5 million annually—in children under five years, is known to be largely caused by a lack of water, sanitation and hygiene.
In Ghana, available data indicates, approximately 19,000 Ghanaians, including 5,100 children under-five die each year from diarrhoea, nearly 90 per cent of which is directly attributed to poor water, sanitation and hygiene.
Available data also indicates that poor sanitation is a contributing factor— through its impact on malnutrition rates— to other leading causes of child mortality, including malaria and measles.
Poor water, sanitation and hygiene are also inextricably linked to childhood under-nutrition, cognitive delays and stunting.
Sanjay Wijesekera, global head of the United Nations Children’s Fund’s (UNICEF’s) Water, Sanitation and Hygiene programme, has observed “If 90 school buses filled with kindergartners were to crash every day, with no survivors, the world would take notice. But this is precisely what happens every single day because of poor water, sanitation and hygiene.”
Access to clean water and safe latrines is, therefore, critical in preventing the spread of bacterial diseases and ensuring that women and young girls have a secure place to practice safe and healthy menstrual hygiene.
Indeed, the World Health Organization (WHO/Hutton, 2012) indicates that for every $1 USD spent on water and sanitation, there is an economic return of $4 USD.
Undoubtedly, some progress has been made since 1990, with organizations such as World Vision, Ghana (WVG) complimenting government’s efforts in the provision of water, sanitation and hygiene.
Over the past three years, it is important to note, WVG has reached 3.5 million Ghanaians with water, sanitation and hygiene and hope to reach 10 million people by the year 2016.
It will, however, require political will and investment— with a focus on equity and on reaching the hardest to reach— for every child to be able to get access to improved drinking water and sanitation, perhaps within a generation.
The writer is an Information Officer, Information Services Department.
- See more at: http://graphic.com.gh/features/features/44573-every-child-deserves-clean-water.html#sthash.ckWdbchS.dpuf
Due to the close linkage and interdependence between water and health, nature, urbanization, energy and food, and their implications for poverty alleviation, water security has become a major issue of global concern— particularly as water supplies face increasing pressures from a growing population, industrialisation, urbanisation, agricultural intensification, water-intensive lifestyles and climate change.
According to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), forty-seven per cent of the global population could be living under severe water stress by the year 2050, a development that is bound to threaten the long-term viability of water-dependent projects and hinder the socio-economic development of nations.
According to OECD, available statistics indicate that the earth’s most valuable resource —fresh water— is being indiscriminately and rapidly polluted and depleted, with severe consequences for both the present and, more particularly, future generations.
This means that unless water and land resources are managed more effectively in the present decade and beyond than they have been in the past, to reverse the present trends of overconsumption, pollution, and rising threats from droughts and floods, human health and welfare, food security, industrial development and the ecosystems on which they depend, are all at risk.
The 1992 Earth summit in Rio de Janeiro unanimously adopted Agenda 21, a blueprint for sustainable development while the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the United Nations General Assembly Resolution 55/2 outlined 8 targets aimed at reducing poverty and promoting sustainable development.
Furthermore, the World Summit on Sustainable Development reaffirmed the commitment to Agenda 21 and MDGs.
Sustainable Development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs—and failure to protect and conserve the health of ecosystems such as fresh water bodies and forests is bound to negatively impact on global socio-economic development.
Sustainability, thus, requires limits on consumption levels of fresh water as well as limits on population because the bigger the population, the bigger the stress on freshwater ecosystems.
It has, therefore, been recommended that a set of actions be implemented at local, national and international levels, based on the four guiding principles of Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM), namely that fresh water is a finite and vulnerable resource, essential to sustain life, development and the environment; that water development and management should be based on a participatory approach, involving users, planners and policy-makers at all levels; that women should play a central part in the provision, management and safeguarding of water; and that water has an economic value in all its competing uses and should be recognized as an economic good.
These four, known as the Dublin principles, provided vital input to the June 1992 Rio UN Conference on Environment and Development, (UNCED) during which the celebration of the World Water Day was recommended and subsequently instituted in 1993 by the UN General Assembly to annually focus attention on the importance of freshwater and advocate the sustainable management of freshwater resources.
It has also been recommended that to ensure sustainable water development, government, policy makers, planners, industrialists and society, as a whole, should properly co-ordinate ecological approaches with the economic and social approaches to achieve a steady and accelerated economic development; higher living standards; improvement in public health; improvement in ecosystem health; strict law enforcement on natural resources conservation; and environmental protection.
Other recommendations are that multilateral agreements and global funding should be devoted to the protection and conservation of freshwater bodies, including transboundary river systems; conservation and sustainable use of natural resources— instead of outright exploitation— and the promotion of ways to re-use and recycle waste from one production process as inputs in another process to prevent the build-up of waste in the environment.
The others are the implementation of the National Rainwater Harvesting (RWH) policy and the development and enforcement of progressive public policy on water extraction and the monitoring of ground water.
In all these, the role of the Water Resources Commission (WRC) cannot be overemphasized.
WRC, established by an Act of Parliament (Act 522 of 1996) as the overall body responsible for water resources management in Ghana, ought to be reminded of its mandate to regulate and manage the sustainable utilization of water resources and to co-ordinate related policies in relation to them.
The writer is an Information Officer, Information Services Department.
Email: aristoncr@yahoo.com
- See more at: http://graphic.com.gh/features/features/44574-severe-water-stress-is-imminent-unless-water-and-land-resources-are-managed-more-effectively-now.html#sthash.EzH3YhpP.dpuf
Every child deserves clean water
Clean water and good environmental sanitation are essential for child survival.
In other words, increased access to clean water and sanitation are prerequisites for reducing infant mortality and improved maternal health.
However, even though Ghana is at the brink of achieving the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 7 on clean drinking water, the same can hardly be said of sanitation.
Indeed, several studies and reports have established that children in Ghana are affected by waterborne diseases such as diarrhoea, dysentery, cholera and typhoid fever which are spread mainly through the use of unsafe water.
The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 50 per cent of malnutrition is associated with repeated diarrhoea or intestinal worm infections as a result of unsafe water, inadequate sanitation or poor hygiene.
Globally, the statistics show that diarrhoea, a leading cause of death —1.5 million annually—in children under five years, is known to be largely caused by a lack of water, sanitation and hygiene.
In Ghana, available data indicates, approximately 19,000 Ghanaians, including 5,100 children under-five die each year from diarrhoea, nearly 90 per cent of which is directly attributed to poor water, sanitation and hygiene.
Available data also indicates that poor sanitation is a contributing factor— through its impact on malnutrition rates— to other leading causes of child mortality, including malaria and measles.
Poor water, sanitation and hygiene are also inextricably linked to childhood under-nutrition, cognitive delays and stunting.
Sanjay Wijesekera, global head of the United Nations Children’s Fund’s (UNICEF’s) Water, Sanitation and Hygiene programme, has observed “If 90 school buses filled with kindergartners were to crash every day, with no survivors, the world would take notice. But this is precisely what happens every single day because of poor water, sanitation and hygiene.”
Access to clean water and safe latrines is, therefore, critical in preventing the spread of bacterial diseases and ensuring that women and young girls have a secure place to practice safe and healthy menstrual hygiene.
Indeed, the World Health Organization (WHO/Hutton, 2012) indicates that for every $1 USD spent on water and sanitation, there is an economic return of $4 USD.
Undoubtedly, some progress has been made since 1990, with organizations such as World Vision, Ghana (WVG) complimenting government’s efforts in the provision of water, sanitation and hygiene.
Over the past three years, it is important to note, WVG has reached 3.5 million Ghanaians with water, sanitation and hygiene and hope to reach 10 million people by the year 2016.
It will, however, require political will and investment— with a focus on equity and on reaching the hardest to reach— for every child to be able to get access to improved drinking water and sanitation, perhaps within a generation.
The writer is an Information Officer, Information Services Department.
- See more at: http://graphic.com.gh/features/features/44573-every-child-deserves-clean-water.html#sthash.ckWdbchS.dpuf
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