Learning from the Water Crisis of Our Making
August 11, 2010
By PopTech
The world is facing a water and sanitation crisis, but not the one you think. True, nearly 900 million people lack clean water and 2.5 billion lack a safe toilet, but perhaps the greater tragedy is that decades of efforts by philanthropists and NGOs have been pursued in such a short-sighted way that today many of the poorest regions of the world are littered with broken hand pumps and failed latrines—an enduring reminder of promise unfulfilled. Of the 600,000 to 800,000 hand pumps installed in Sub-Saharan Africa over the past 20 years, approximately one third fail prematurely, according to the International Water and Sanitation Centre in the Netherlands, a total failed investment of more than $1 billion.
Ned Breslin, the CEO of the nonprofit Water For People, caused a stir in January when he published a critique of water and sanitation development practices titled “Rethinking Hydro-Philanthropy.” Breslin argues that donors, NGOs, and local governments are letting down the people they serve by refusing to properly evaluate their work and confront past mistakes.
“Africa, Asia and Latin America have become wastelands for broken water and sanitation infrastructure,” Breslin writes. “Go to schools throughout developing countries and you will often find a broken hand pump around the corner, or a disused latrine that filled years ago. Sector agencies intuitively know this but the general public is shielded from these hard truths as perceptions of failure could threaten ‘the cause’ of reaching the unserved. Poor people do not benefit from this disingenuity.”
What do you think?
