Improved water is not enough
In Kinshasa, the capital and largest city of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the vast majority of the population has access to “improved” water.
Yet it is increasingly clear that “improved” water is not enough; when the 2017 DRC WASH Poverty Diagnostic tested water quality in over 1,600 households in Kinshasa, water samples from nearly 40% of improved sources were still contaminated with fecal E. Coli Bacteria at point of use.
Ensuring water supply is not just “improved” but truly clean is a critical public health priority.
While the earlier Millennium Development Goals (MDG) merely aimed to increase access to “improved” water, the SDGs target “safely managed” water that is not just improved, but on premises, available when needed, and – critically – “free from contamination”.
Applying this target to our work in the water sector in developing countries, a number of steps could be taken to improve our impact on the critical aspect of water quality: Updating Results Indicators: Despite the new SDGs, many sector interventions continue to target merely “improved” water.
A simple step would be to replace “improved” water targets with the aim of “safely managed” water.
This core indicator could then be matched by intermediate indicators targeting more specific quality related results, for example, regular water quality testing and publication of results by utilities and a certain percentage of samples confirmed to be clean at source or at point-of-use.
Targeting Point of Use: Contamination is a problem not only during water production and distribution, but on the last mile from point of collection to household storage, until the water is actually consumed.
Programs targeting treatment of water at point-of-use, for instance, by raising awareness of the disease link and promoting boiling, filters, or chlorine treatment, can be important bridge-interventions, where no proper infrastructure exists.
Focusing on child malnutrition could be a cross-sectoral rallying point to maximizing the impact of WASH interventions on human development by combining it more effectively with education, health, and nutrition programs.