Since summer 2010, water has been acknowledged as human right by the UN. Despite progress over the recent years in meeting the global development targets for clean drinking water, having to spend several hours a day collecting water remains the reality for millions of women living in developing countries. For children, failing to fulfil this right means serious risks for health: globally, more than 2 million children die each year from water and sanitation-related diseases.
“I had to wake up early to form a waiting line for fetching water from a two-kilometre away dirty cluster of water pits in my village. I take turn with my teenage daughter to fetch water every other day. My daughter occasionally misses school classes and many times she was late as it took 3-4 hours to get through a long line to water pits,” describes Ethiopian Gelanesh Tasew, a 42-year-old resident of shematabia village in Ethiopia, the situation before her community got a spring water supply.
As a result of a project to establish the supply, Tasew’s daughter can now spend her time on school work, and three-hundred family members living with 63 households – and their livestock – now have access to clean water. The project was lead by children’s development organization Plan, for whom sanitation and hygiene are a core part of the work in Ethiopia.
Enatalum Gebra, a mother of five, describes a typical scene when speaking about shematabia village before the project : “The water pits were not protected and we used to share them with domestic and wild animals. Water-born diseases like diarrhoea were particularly affecting our children”, she says, and adds: “Not only human beings, even domestic animals were affected by blood-sucking worms like leeches and internal parasites."
Girls collect water from the newly built spring water facility in Shematabia, Ethiopia by Tamiru Legesse / Plan
Everyone has a right to water
When considered a human right, the right to water means governments should ensure that there is enough water for the people, that it’s safe for drinking, easily accessible and affordable to all. Although a challenge, this goal should not be impossible to reach, as the core of the global water crises really doesn’t lie in the amount of water as such. Rather, it is rooted in poverty, inequality and unequal power relationships.
According to the United Nations Development Programme UNDP, the world contains sufficiently freshwater for everyone’s basic needs. However, the real problem is that it’s not equally distributed. Issues such as lack of infrastructure for distribution of water, or exclusion of certain groups of people from these services, need to be addressed. Also, excessive extraction of existing supplies for agricultural or industrial use, as well as the increasing contamination of groundwater, result in insufficient access for those most in need.
>> Learn more about Kemira's cooperation with Plan
>> Plan’s work with water and sanitation
Water is one of the most important vital conditions for life and clean water a precondition for survival. Support for projects that develop potable water supply and increase hygiene is a natural continuation to Kemira’s international work as a leading water chemistry company.