After a childhood spent collecting water, she is now a wife, an artist, and an empowered mother who is changing her family’s world.. Ruth is hopeful and determined.
Empowering women is critical to solving the water crisis.
We empower moms to get safe water and sanitation by helping them access affordable financing.
A young Ruth may have spent days dreaming about the things she wanted to create, the pictures she wanted to draw, the artist in her she wished to explore.
When she wasn’t walking to collect water, Ruth helped her mother with household chores like cooking, cleaning, and sewing.
She and her husband remained close to her childhood home, settling just up the road.
For no other reason than it was what the family had always known, Ruth was to continue collecting water each day – for her parents and now her own home.
Water.org’s work in Peru meant Ruth could have access to safe water at home.
We created WaterCredit for people like Ruth, to empower the poor to finance the construction of their own water tap, at home.
And at the center of that potential was an artist – an artist who could sew and make a living creating.

by Steve Ramirez, originally posted on July 8, 2016

LAS CRUCES – As Las Cruces’ temperatures continue to climb into triple digits so do the number of water line breaks across the city.

The latest happened Thursday along a portion of Stern Drive. It didn’t turn out to be one, but two water outages that happened near each other.

Thursday’s outages, which affected about 100 city of Las Cruces water utilities customers, shut off water — and likely air conditioning, for those with swamp coolers — on Stern Drive, and homes in the College Manor subdivision including: Old Farm Road, North Park Drive, Yale Drive, Yale Court, Purdue Court, Drake Court, Dartmouth Avenue, Carreon Place, and Vassar Court.

“It was a little unpleasant,” said Mike Gaines, a New Mexico State University student, who lives on Dartmouth Avenue. “No water, no AC (air conditioning); it was a good day to go to the movies and hide from it.”

Adrienne Widmer, Las Cruces Utilities Water Resources Section administrator, said an initial water main break on Stern Drive was repaired Thursday morning. But by late afternoon another water line break occurred south of the original break on Stern.

“It was fixed by about 10 p.m.,” Widmer said.

The city has experienced a higher than average number of water outages lately. On June 15, a 12-inch water main broke near Picacho Avenue and Third Street. It took Water Resources Section crews about eight hours to fix the water main.

The water from that ruptured line forced a Las Cruces woman and her two sons from the nearby duplex where they were living.

A day later, a contractor hit a water line near the intersection of Fourth Street and Brownlee Avenue. It took Water Resources Section crews about three hours to fix that break.

The rash of water line breaks isn’t that uncommon.

“They can happen every time of the year,” Widmer said. “They just don’t happen because the weather gets hot or cold. They can happen when lines, especially in older neighborhoods, get older. … It doesn’t seem like we have had this many breaks, in any given time, in about a year.”

As water service is restored, affected residents could notice discolored water because of the settling of sediments in water lines that were shut off. The water is suitable for drinking, but residents who want to do laundry should flush water lines in their homes for about five minutes to clear any discoloration.

If water remains discolored after flushing lines, residents should call 575-526-0500.

The city is also working on a number of projects to replace water and other utility lines. Earlier this week, Water Resources Section crews closed Spruce Avenue at Virginia Street for maintenance of water lines at that intersection. During that work, water had to be turned off to nearby homes and businesses for about four hours.

Traffic in that area has been limited the past two weeks to one lane eastbound and westbound.

A block south, on Piñon Avenue between Mesquite Street and Virginia Street, city crews have been replacing all utility lines on that street, including water lines. The same thing has been happening on Court Avenue and on much of Boston Drive, near Conlee Elementary School. The extensive excavation and road work is happening in older city neighborhoods.

Even the city’s online utility payment system is getting a makeover. From 1 p.m. Friday, July 15, until 8 a.m. Monday, July 18, city utilities customers will not be able to pay their bills online due to software upgrades to the payment system. During the upgrade, customers can make payments by calling 866-426-9757 and follow the payment prompts.

by Paul Tajuba, originally posted on July 8, 2016

An underground stream flows through many small shacks made of poles, mud and rusty iron sheets in Katoogo, Kinawataka in Kampala, with an artesian just about five metres from Robert Kiyimba’s shack.

An artesian well is a well in which water rises under pressure from a permeable stratum overlaid by impermeable rock.

It is this artesian well, flowing freely throughout the year, where hundreds of people in this slum draw their water- at no cost.

“We save a lot of money with this artesian well. Life would be expensive if we were to include [on daily expenses] buying tapped water at Shs200 per jerrican,” Kiyimba, a casual labourer and a father of three, says.

But as Kiyimba draws water freely, a mass of rubbish made out of polythene bags, food leftovers, cigarette butts and children’s faecal matter, builds just above the same shacks and walkways adjacent their water source especially during rainy season, often flowing into the well.

“We often clean this place but some residents continue to dump polythene here. It is no harm though because we only use this water for bathing, washing … and not drinking. We buy a jerrican specifically for drinking,” Kiyimba, whose shack lays in a gully, says.

Impact

But Dr Asuman Lukwago, the ministry of Health permanent secretary says while Kiyimba and his colleagues think they are getting free water, instead they are exposing themselves to waterborne diseases, including bilharzia, diarrhea, trachoma, typhoid and scabies which will not only affect their health but also finances.

He says due to pollution emanating from industries around Kampala, it is not safe for people to use such water and this explains why water borne diseases plague the country, especially during the rainy seasons.

Last year, more than 400 suspected typhoid cases plagued the country which medical practitioners attributed to taking contaminated food and water.

According to a 2012 World Bank Water and Sanitation Programme (WSP) report, poor sanitation costs Uganda an estimated $177 million annually (equivalent to about 1.1 per cent of GDP) because of premature deaths due to diarrhoea, malnutrition and diseases such as malaria and measles. Each year, diarrhoea claims 19,700 Ugandan children under the age of five years.

Kiyimba says last year, he spent more than Shs150,000 treating malaria that had infected his family.

Recently, utility body National Water and Sewerage Corporation (NW&SC) battled to restore water supply to its 139,000 clients in Gulu District. The affected customers had dry taps after a severe three-month drought drained Oyitino Dam, which was supplying the greater Gulu District.

Paul Rackara, the NW&SC Gulu branch manager, said water supply dropped towards the end of March and April from 2.3 million cubic litres to a meagre 1.5 cubic litres in a week as opposed to 4.8 million litres of what the utility body supplies to its clients.

James Bataze a senior metereologist from Uganda National Meteorological Authority warns of harsher weather conditions resulting from global warming.

Uganda is mandated under the UN global agenda to “ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all” by 2030.

This is a commitment embraced when the UN adopted the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), last September at the expiry of the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) adopted in 2000.

SDG goal six dictates that all states “ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all” by 2030 a higher demand from MDGs whose priority was to halve the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water.

Dr Mugerwa says, for instance, the Authority has recommended that government increases access to safe water in rural areas from 65 per cent currently to 79 per cent and urban areas from 77 per cent to 100 per cent by 2030.

He, however, says attaining the above require everyone’s effective involvement and a well-coordinated financing mechanism, meaning the donor community’s hand will be handy.

Lydia Mirembe, the communication and knowledge management advisor IRC Uganda, an international organisation working in the water sector, says attaining universal water coverage should be the easiest goal in this global agenda.

“Since water is a transboundary issue, government should work hand in hand with other countries to protect water sources shared across as well,” Mirembe adds.

According to 2015 Uganda Bureau of Statistics (Ubos) report, Uganda has a wetland coverage of 4,500 square kilometres (1.9 per cent of Uganda’s total area), and a legion of lakes and rivers, including Lake Victoria, George, Edward, Albert, Kyoga and River Nile, the longest river in the world.

Robert Bakiika, the deputy executive director Environmental Management for Livelihood Improvement Bwaise Facility (EMLI), a local non-government organisation involved in environment conservation, says the only impediment to attaining universal water coverage and sustain it will be encroachment on water reservoirs and rain makers like forests.

Uganda, according to State of the Environment report 2008, loses 90,000 hectares of forest cover annually, which according to experts, increases water evaporation and long dry spells among others.

Ray of hope

But environment watchdog, the National Environment Management Authority (Nema), breathed hope in some Ugandans when the authority launched a restoration of all wetlands in the country starting with Lubigi, northwest of Kampala.

Most of the restored areas now have papyrus and other wetland flora and fauna growing.

Attaining total restoration, provide universal water access sustainably, former Water and Environment minister Prof Ephraim Kamuntu says government will need to increase its budgetary allocation to the sector, since without water, there is no life.

The government in the 2014/15 Budget allocated 3 per cent of the Shs24 trillion to Environment ministry, a figure Prof Kamuntu said was small and cannot enable his ministry to protect water sources or avail water to all. As a result, Prof Kamuntu says many women and girls continue to walk long distances in search for water on their heads “instead of using the” for thinking”.

When government fails to act, the the likes of Kiyimba spend a lot in hospital bills. Any penny spent on seeking avoidable health expenses, impacts on the saving abilities of the Kiyimbas of this world.

Statistics

According to the 2015 Uganda Bureau Of Statistics report, Uganda has a total of total of 4,500 square kilometres of wetland coverage.

Annually, Uganda loses 90,000 hectares of forest cover, as reported in the State of the Environment report 2008.

According to a 2012 World Bank Water and Sanitation Programme report, poor sanitation costs the country an estimated $177 million annually.

by D. Gopi, originally posted on April 13, 2016

Vijayawada: The third zone area under the Nagarjunasagar reservoir cries for water. The area which falls under the western parts of Krishna district is staring at the government for release of water to fill over 260 irrigation tanks besides providing irrigation water for 2.20 lakh acres.

Way back in 1994, when Devineni Rajasekhar (Nehru) was the Minister in the NTR Cabinet, he held a couple of meetings in Jaggaiahpet with the irrigation officials, and ensured release of water to the third zone. Even then Vissannapet, Chatrai, Nuzvid and Bapulapadu mandals faced water crisis.

by Jessie Lim, originally posted on April 13, 2016

WATER sustains life and without it, nothing grows. Often, it is something we take for granted.

But imagine if there’s no clean water, or no water source at all – how then can we survive?

Leading charities from across South-East Asia have come together with a mission: to bring clean, safe drinking water and sanitation to the underprivileged population residing in the underdeveloped countries in the region.

Known as Asiawater Responsible Business Alliance, the group recently made a pledge at Asiawater 2016.

This initiative will see strategic partnerships between public and private companies, government agencies, and knowledge institutes involved in water technology as they work together to find ways to improve the well-being of specific communities.

The Asiawater Responsible Business Alliance is a corporate social responsibility (CSR) project by United Business Media (UBM), and will undertake activities individually and collaboratively to provide access to clean water and sanitation to those in need.

Heading the Alliance is UBM Malaysia Asiawater 2016 adviser and former National Water Services Commission (SPAN) chief executive officer Datuk Teo Yen Hua.

“Water is life. Many of us tend to forget that there are still thousands of households in this region that don’t have basic water supply and proper sanitation facilities.

“We want to bring companies from across South-East Asia with similar objectives to work together,” explained Teo, adding that several programmes were being planned and would be rolled out soon.

UBM also organises the Water Series exhibitions in other Asean countries, and aims to showcase their programmes in those exhibitions.

Hopefully, the local authorities that are interested can learn from some of these programmes, Teo added.

UBM Malaysia co-chairman General (Rtd) Tan Sri Mohd Azumi Moha-med said that the initiative was UBM’s contribution to society.

“It is not so much of the commercial value that UBM will take away from a show (Asiawater 2016) like this, but it is also what we, and the exhibitors, can contribute to society. Asiawater has much to offer,” commented Mohd Azumi during the launch of Asiawater 2016.

Held at Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre, Asiawater 2016 is the ninth edition of Asiawater Expo and Forum, the region’s leading water industry event.

The expo and forum serves as a platform for water and wastewater solutions in the Asean region, and at the same time, provides a stream of business opportunities and a chance to network.

Policy makers, industry leaders, experts and practitioners came together to address challenges and opportunities in developing Asia’s water infrastructure.

The three-day event saw over 829 companies from 48 countries showcasing their latest technologies, solutions and expertise to 14,000 trade visitors.

Products and services featured include actuators, filters, fittings, meters, pipes, pumps, tanks, valves and water treatment.

There were also 11 international pavilions from countries such as Austria, China, Germany, Taiwan, Thailand, The Netherlands, Singapore, Korea and the United States.

Energy, Green Technology and Water Minister Datuk Seri Dr Maximus Ongkili was present to officiate at the launch of Asiawater 2016 which is supported by the Department of Water Supply (JBA), Department of Irrigation and Drainage Malaysia (JPS) and National Water Services Commission Malaysia (SPAN).

During the tour around the exhibition halls, he also witnessed two Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signing: Ranhill Water Services Sdn Bhd with Canadian technology company Echologics LLC, and Fermetec Resources Sdn Bhd with Yunnan Water (Hong Kong) Company Limited.

The Water Series by UBM Asia will also take place in Myanmar, Vietnam, Philippines and Thailand.

by Amelie Baron and Anita Beattie,  originally posted on April 7, 2016

From her village of Godet, the 15-year-old can see the sprawling villas belonging to the Caribbean country’s elite, yet her family and neighbors have no access to running water.

“In the morning, I get two buckets of water that we use for cooking and drinking,” the girl explains, breathless after walking up from the stream that serves several hundred villagers.

“In the afternoon, I come back again once or twice.”

Godet is only 15 kilometers (9.3 miles) from Haiti’s capital city of Port-au-Prince, but the lack of a proper road means the community of metal shacks and simple concrete homes is isolated and cut off from basic services.

Dorleus is not alone—the UN says 42 percent of Haitians do not have access to safe drinking water.

It’s this lack of infrastructure that reinforces the cycle of poverty in Haiti, the poorest country in the Americas and one of the poorest in the world.

Catheline Metelus, who is 27 and was born in Godet, has been hauling water along this same path for years.

“It takes more than one hour to get up and down the hill with the water. Sometimes I’m too tired to go but I have no choice,” she says.

Metelus, who earns a few dollars a week selling leeks from her garden, worries about the water’s effect on the health of her three children.

“The doctor told us to always boil water to kill germs but that requires coal, which is expensive. Chlorine is also expensive so a lot of the time, we just drink it,” she says.

Risk of disease

Mourad Wahba, the humanitarian coordinator of the UN mission to Haiti, said lack of water also means problems with sanitation, which can cause and spread disease.

“I know we immediately think of cholera but even diarrhea is dangerous in an environment where these illnesses aren’t treated,” he said.

Mothers here say their children frequently suffer from diarrhea caused by the water, and the most severely affected are sent to the hospital by motorcycle taxi.

Such a scenario can devastate the finances of a family in Godet, most of whom survive on their small gardens and informal jobs.

In Haiti, 72 percent of people do not have toilets in their homes. The number of toilets in Godet can actually be counted on one hand.

“There’s a lady here who has a well-built toilet,” Metelus said, pointing to a small concrete house a hundred meters (yards) away, “but it’s not always open so we answer the call of nature on the hillside.”

At the bottom of the hill lies the stream that is their only source of water, but poverty leaves few other options.

Meanwhile, a lack of education means many villagers do not understand the dangers of contaminating the stream with trash and chemicals.

Women washing clothes in the water reject the idea that they should do their work downstream.

“It’s made from flowers, it’s natural,” 30-year-old Marie-Juna Pierre said, pointing to the label on her bottle of fabric softener.

She then poured the blue liquid into the very spot where she comes every morning to gather drinking water for her children.

by Lahja Nashuuta, originally posted on April 7, 2016

Windhoek – Namibia is still a long way from achieving a higher percentage of access to clean water for its rural areas even though it has manage to supply 80 percent of its urban and peri-urban population with potable water by end of 2015, thereby reducing the proportion of the population without access to safe water.

The higher percentage of population with access to water also means that Namibia is among the four countries in the southern region of the continent who have achieved that feat – with Botswana, Malawi, and South Africa.

Despite being a semi-arid country with limited and unevenly distributed water resources, Namibia has made commendable achievements in the water sector. According to the 2013 Namibia Demographic and Health Survey Report, over 87 percent of the households in Namibia have now access to safe drinking supply. Water coverage in urban is 97.5 percent while in rural areas stands at 75.5 percent.

But the challenges remains, as Namibia’s rural areas still experience chronic shortage of water, both for human, and animal consumption as well as agricultural activities, according to Agriculture, Water and Forestry Minister John Mutorwa who has attributed the 80 percent access to safer water achievement to “sustained commitment and effective implementation approaches.”

The challenge has people in the rural areas resorting to utilising saline and unhygienic water for drinking and household chores. The most affected are those in Omusati, Ohangwena and Kunene regions. Ohangwena region, located on the northern west of the country on the border with Angola is faced with critical water shortage, according to Governor Usko Nghaamwa.

Most residents depend on water from boreholes and wells, but due to poor rainfall, most of the water sources are empty. People in areas such as Eheke, Omundaungilo, Ondobe and Epembe are fully depending on earth dams for water while in other parts people have to work long distances to fetch water, he said.

“The situation is very serious especially in those areas. The main reason is that they are very far from the main water pipe,” said the governor, adding that water availability for livestock is poor in most parts of the regions as many earth dams have dried up due to lack of rain.

“Many farmers in these areas have already started moving their livestock to cattle post areas where there is water and grazing,” he said in telephone interview. Nghaamwa also expressed his dismay over failure by companies that were awarded contracts to drill more boreholes, but failed to deliver on the work that they were paid to do, while some produce sub-standard work.

Omusati region is also struggling with lack of water.

While applauding the government for the decentralization of water infrastructure in the region, Governor Erick Endjala raised his concern over the closing of community water taps by the country’s water utility, Namwater, over unpaid water debts.

“I can confirm that we don’t really have enough water to sustain ourselves and the livestock during dry season. There is water infrastructure but many of them like water taps have been closed because the community cannot afford to pay,” Endjala said in telephone interview.

Endjala said “most of our livestock are depending on earth dams and since there have been no proper rehabilitation done on them for so long, some of them are now filled up and can no longer hold water for so long.

“There are also lots boreholes in the region but the water is too salty and cannot be consumed by both human and livestock,” he said.

Endjala noted that there is need to make water more affordable to the majority, while calling on Namwater to be sensitive and desist from cutting off community water point.

“It does help when you have water infrastructures around the region that are closed. People are pressurizing the regional office to give them water but there is nothing the office of the governor cannot do as the capacity to do that,” he said.

To avoid future water stress, the Omusati Regional Council is looking at modalities to see how they can start harvesting rain water for household use and irrigation.

Endjala said the region has already presented a proposal to the ministry of agriculture, water and forestry to consider rehabilitating earth dams and to revamp the Olushandja dam that got potential to hold water for many years.

With a surface area of 29 square kilometres, the capacity to hold 42.3 million cubic metres of water, Olushandja Dam, which was constructed in 1990, is an important water source in the region, including horticulture.

Water scarcity is affects every continent. According United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA) to Around 1.2 billion people, or almost one-fifth of the world’s population, live in areas of physical scarcity, and 500 million people are approaching this situation.

Another 1.6 billion people, or almost one quarter of the world’s population, face economic water shortage where countries lack the necessary infrastructure to take water from rivers and aquifer. Sub-Saharan Africa has the largest number of water-stressed countries of any region.

As many as 43,000 Bangladeshis die each year from arsenic-related diseases

-by Matt Broomfield, originally posted on April 6, 2016

Each year, 43,000 Bangladeshis die as a result of drinking arsenic-contaminated water, a figure which has not significantly altered since steps were taken to clean up Bangladesh’s water supply at the turn of the century.

Corruption and international neglect are to blame for the fact 20 million people in Bangladesh are still drinking water laced with arsenic, more than a decade after the extent of the problem was made clear, according to a new report by Human Rights Watch (HRW).

There is a high level of naturally occuring arsenic in Bangladeshi groundwater, as there is across South Asia. The poison can cause cancers of the skin, liver kidney, bladder and lungs, as well as cardiovascular and lung disease.

This does not normally affect the quality of water in large cities such as the capital, Dhaka, where water is drawn up from untainted aquifers deep in the ground, or purified before distribution.

But in rural areas, around 10 million hand pumps still draw up potentially contanimated groundwater. The Bangladeshi government tends to extrapolate from the number of “clean water” wells available, publishing data suggesting that a large majority of its citizens can access clean water.

However, an independent 2013 survey of water at the point of use also found that 20 million Bangladeshis were still using arsenic-poisoned water.

This was the same as the figure the government published in 2003, following an international outcry about arsenic deaths. At the time, the World Health Organisation called the government’s failure to reduce the level of naturally occuring arsenic in its water “the largest mass poisoning of a population in history”. The HRW survey said there was “little or no evidence of concerted efforts” to improve the situation for rural villagers.

In its survey of rural areas, HRW found that 60 per cent government water points were broken or restricted from public access. Analysing 85 per cent of the roughly 125,000 water points installed by the government between 2006 and 2012, HRW also found that around five per cent broke the government’s own recommended maximum level of arsenic content.

“Politicians undermine the allocation of new government water points by diverting these life-saving public goods to their political supporters and allies,” the HRW report claimed. In one recent project, 50 per cent of pumps were allegedly constructed in locations intended to benefit government officials.

The problem is compounded by international indifference and the failure of NGOs to address the issue, according to the report.

They suggest that NGOs such as UNICEF have blindly provided funding to government clean-water initiatives, despite evidence that the government’s water testing methods “barely function”, and that the government expends “considerable resources in areas where the risk of arsenic contamination is relatively low”.

It is estimated that up to 5 million Bangladeshi children born between 2000 and 2030 could die after being exposed to arsenic in their water supply.

Most people dependent on aid agencies to drink with 96 percent of water supplies unsafe and 90mn litres of sewage pumped into sea every day

-Mohammed Omer, originally posted on April 4, 2016

RAFAH, Gaza – Hanan Abdeljawwad is powerless again. The 43-year-old woman has been mostly without electricity for days. And without electricity to power the pump, there is nothing she can do to get water for her family’s daily use.

If she and her family in Rafah are lucky, they will get a small amount of water for domestic use from the pipes under the ground once every three or four days.

Yet this occasional supply is a rarity in most of the strip where access to clean water has become a rare privilege rather than a human right.

In Gaza, the average person consumes 79 litres per capita per day (lcd),according to EWASH, a coalition of humanitarian organisations working on water-related issues in the occupied Palestinian territories, although for some people that figure drops as low as 20 litres.

The World Health Organisation recommends a minimum of 100lcd, while the average in Israel, where almost three-quarters of the country’s water needs are provided for by desalination plants, is 300lcd.

“The water is there, under the ground, but we have no electricity to pump it up,” Abdeljawwad told Middle East Eye, as she stood waiting for the man who sells the water in Rafah to come around.

Even when it does flow, the water that comes through the pipes is unfit for human consumption.

According to Joseph Aguettant, the representative of Terre des Hommes, a Swiss-based NGO working in Gaza, 96 percent of water from Gaza’s coastal aquifer is contaminated with nitrates and chloride.

Only a quarter of wells in Gaza meet World Health Organisation safety levels of less than 250mg of chloride per litre, with one quarter containing more than 1,000mg per litre.

The total number of wells in Gaza that meet WHO safety criteria for both nitrates and chloride is just 14 – or 6.5 percent of the enclave’s wells.

Gaza’s water shortages have been compounded by the long-term infrastructural damage caused by Israel’s 2014 military offensive.

More than 120,000 people are still disconnected from public water networks, and 23 percent of Gaza is not connected to the sewage system.

Damage to the electricity grid and fuel and electricity shortages means that wastewater treatment plants often cannot function, with untreated sewage discharged onto the streets or into the sea.

According to United Nations aid agencies, up to 90 million litres of untreated or partially treated sewage is released into the Mediterranean every day.

Combined with the impact of Israel and Egypt’s blockade, high levels of unemployment and a lack of development projects, officials say Gaza is now facing an unprecedented water crisis with potentially disastrous sanitary and health consequences for its 1.8 million people.

Last year, the UN warned that the enclave could be uninhabitable by 2020.

Efforts by aid organisations to address the issue – including a proposed UNICEF-backed project for a major desalination plant in the central Gazan town of Khan Younis – have also been hindered by the blockade, with 70 percent of materials needed for water and wastewater projects classified by Israel as dual-use items.

Dual use items are considered to have military and civilian applications and are subject to Israeli restrictions.

“The Israeli ‘dual use’ list is excessively restrictive and out of line with international standards,” said Aguettant.

According EWASH, up to 30 water projects in Gaza are at risk of being suspended or cancelled as a consequence of shortages of equipment.

“Through war after war, the existing and already poor water infrastructure in Gaza is repeatedly destroyed or damaged. With a near decade-long blockade, some of the EWASH projects remain delayed, incomplete or inoperative as vital materials take months to reach the local market – if at all,” said Maher al-Najjar, the deputy general director of the Coastal Municipalities Water Utility (CMWU), which is responsible for providing water supplies in Gaza.

Many other officials in Gaza admit that as long as neither the funds nor the materials are available, the prospects of a viable network of desalination plants ever being constructed remain a pipe dream.

“The Gaza Strip accounts for about 1.4 percent of the total space of Palestine, whereas its 1.8 million people represent 17 percent of the Palestinian population,” Mazen al-Banna, deputy head of Palestinian Water Authority in Gaza, told MEE.

“That gives you some sense of the density of population, and the very limited space for farming in Gaza City.”

He said an increase in population and consumption had led to severe shortages of all resources, and alleged that rainwater that should be available to Gazans was being diverted by Israel.

“Gaza essentially relied on aquifer water, from the Karmel Mountains, north of Palestine to El Arish in Egypt,” he said.

About 50-60mn cubic metres of rainwater annually flowed into Gaza down an east-to-west slope from the Israeli side of the border but the expected amount ought to be at least double that figure, Banna said.

“There seems to be a large confiscation of the natural waters by the Israeli side,” he said.

Meanwhile, flooding and drainage issues mean that even most of the rainwater that does reach Gaza cannot be efficiently harvested, with only about 40 percent of it put to use, according to Banna.

Flash floods often result in much of the water being pumped into the sea to save residential areas from being deluged, while even in normal conditions much of the water is unable to sink into the aquifer because of the density of urban buildings.

“We could see the water running along the surface, especially in residential low-lying areas,” said Banna.

Banna told MEE that the situation was worst in southern Gaza, with high levels of sewage and chemical contamination recorded in the southern town of Khan Younis.

“In Khan Younis there is a concentration of nitrate, at about 200 mg per litre. The World Health Organisation say that levels should be no greater than 50 mg per litre for healthy consumption.”

In Rafah, the pumping of seawater into border tunnels by the Egyptian military has also resulted in damage to farmland, according to Subhi Radwan, the mayor of the border crossing town.

For now, those Gazans who can afford it are forced to buy water from private companies, with Palestinians spending an average of eight percent of their monthly expenditure on water consumption, compared with a global average of 3.5 percent.

According to the Israeli B’Tselem human rights organisation, that figure for Israelis living in illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank is just 0.9 percent.

Aguettant said that Terre des Hommes had built reservoirs capable of distributing 6,000 litres of water daily as well as repairing sanitary facilities in 29 primary schools since the 2014 war.

The aid organisation has also developed a video game available on tablets called “Play with Nazeef” to educate children about water sanitation issues.

June Kunugi, UNICEF’s State of Palestine Special Representative, told Middle East Eye that there was an “urgent need to ensure that people in Gaza, especially children, can fulfil their right to water”.

Despite the problems, she said UNICEF was working with the CMWU and the PWA to complete the construction within months of a seawater desalination plant in southern Gaza funded by a European Union grant.

The plant, which should be completed this summer, will provide 6,000 cubic metres of desalinated seawater per day at affordable prices, to serve 75,000 people in Khan Younis and Rafah,” said Kunugi.

Many people, like Hanan Abdeljwad, who has been mostly unable to afford water since her husband died two years ago, are already entirely dependent on supplies provided by UN and humanitarian aid agencies.

“This water is no good for drinking, this is a diseased water,” she said, gesturing towards the powerless pump. “You can’t even use it for washing your face or your hair.”

‘I buy water from vendors to cook and wash, and it costs me lots of money. Well water gives us rashes,’ says one local

-by Evelyn Kpadeh Seagbeh, originally posted on April 2, 2016

MONROVIA, Liberia

Liberia’s water problem is not a new issue; it has been there since the country’s 14-year civil war, which destroyed the country’s hydroelectric plant, the Mt. Coffee Hydro Electric Plant outside the capital Monrovia.

Some 13 years since the war ended, only 25 percent of the country’s 4 million people have access to clean, safe drinking water.

Chuchu Kordor Selma, the WaterAid NGO’s team head for Liberia and Sierra Leone, blamed the country’s water woes on urban migration, fragmentation of the water sector, and low investment in the sector by the central government.

Selma told Anadolu Agency that for Liberia to deal with its acute water shortage, the country should establish a dedicated ministry to independently handle the water sector, with the power to ensure citizens have good-quality water and to adequately regulate and distribute to the population.

“Water needs investment, and sanitation needs commitment, so to solve the water problem Liberians are going through, there must be increased government investment in the sector,” Selma told Anadolu Agency in Monrovia.

The water expert wants the government to establish a stand-alone ministry to manage and distribute water supplies, citing Sierra Leone and Ghana as case studies.

“The Ministry of Public Works should be responsible for roads, infrastructure, and bridges, and we should let a new ministry that will not have a divided vision focus on the country’s huge water challenge,” he added.

In 2013 Liberia devoted 1.2 percent of the national budget to the sector, dropping to 0.4 percent in 2014, a figure which has remained low since then, according to Selma.

Citizens’ plight

Access to water as a basic fundamental right of citizens has become a struggle for survival for most Liberians.

The lack of access to safe, clean water – especially mass shortages across the capital Monrovia and its surroundings, including the slum of West Point – during the continuing dry spell there remains a big challenge.

Locals in West Point, the country’s biggest slum, feel the brunt of this problem as most residents are forced to buy water from local vendors each day, an expense that piles up quickly.

Kumba Korkor, 30, a West Point businesswoman, told Anadolu Agency that due to the contamination of the local wells she has to purchase at least 15 gallons of water a day to wash and do other household chores at a cost of $300 Liberian.

“Before the war we had water, but now I buy water from the vendors to cook and wash, and it costs me lots of money.

“Whenever we use the water from the wells in the community, our bodies get covered with rashes,” she lamented.

Due to the central government’s failure to boost the budget needed to address the water shortage and related challenges, local vendors see providing water as a business for survival, although it is hard work.

James Zayzay is a local church pastor, but he makes his living from selling water. Though only 37, he looks older than that due to the hard physical labor he does pushing around special giant wheelbarrows filled with water. He told Anadolu Agency of his daily struggle.

“The water business is hard, but if we all decide not to sell the water because the labor we do is tedious, the problem will get even worse. So we just have to do what we are doing,” he explained.

Each day James and his colleagues Isaac Yekeh, 36, and Joseph Boikai, 24, push traditionally made wheelbarrows carrying 50 containers full of water from the hilltops of Monrovia to the slums of West Point and points in between, supplying water in exchange for money.

To help the country deal with this serious water challenge, the World Bank last week approved US$10 million credit to Liberia to help address the acute water shortage in the capital.

The International Development Association credit is mean to “increase access to piped water supply services in Liberia’s capital, Monrovia, and surrounding areas, and improve the operational efficiency of Liberia Water and Sewer Corporation (LWSC),” said a World Bank press release.

The Liberia Urban Water Supply Project is expected to benefit about 63,000 direct beneficiaries, 44 percent of them women and girls.

At the same time, Selma told Anadolu Agency that “the money could make a huge difference in dealing with the water problem in Liberia, provided the proper strategies and investment plans are developed and implemented.”

“Two years ago the Ministry of Public Works was allotted US$1 million for water, but not much was done in implementation, and as the budget year ended, the money was transferred for another purpose at the ministry,” he related.

Selma and many Liberians in Monrovia are grateful for the World Bank’s support for water supplies in their country, but are worried about the implementation by local authorities.