Fungsi utama dari Dewan Menteri Afrika ' On Air ( AMCOW ) adalah untuk memfasilitasi

regional dan
kerjasama internasional melalui koordinasi kebijakan dan tindakan antara negara-negara
Afrika
mengenai masalah sumber daya air , untuk meninjau dan memobilisasi dana tambahan
untuk sektor air di Afrika ,
dan untuk menyediakan mekanisme untuk memantau kemajuan pelaksanaan regional
yang besar dan global
sumber daya air dan inisiatif pasokan air dan sanitasi .
WHO / UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme untuk Air Minum dan Sanitasi ( JMP ) adalah
Inggris resmi
Mekanisme negara bertugas memantau kemajuan menuju Target MDG 7c pada air
minum dan
kebersihan. JMP menerbitkan perkiraan cakupan diperbarui setiap dua tahun pada
berbagai jenis air minum
sumber dan fasilitas sanitasi yang digunakan di seluruh dunia

The Problems and Solutions to Safe Water

in Africa
It is a desperately worrying statistic that nearly one billion people in the world lack clean, healthy drinking water.
Residents in the UK can turn on a tap and access safe drinking water whenever they like, but the situation is very
different for the people of Africa.

Plan UK on Thursday, May 23rd, 2013

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It is a desperately worrying statistic that nearly one billion people in the world lack clean,
healthy drinking water. Residents in the UK can turn on a tap and access safe drinking water
whenever they like, but the situation is very different for the people of Africa.
Every day millions of people in Africa, usually women and girls, walk miles to have access to
any water at all. The length of time it takes to collect the little water they can get means that
they do not have time to do anything else during the day. Children do not get the chance to
have an education simply because they are too busy collecting water.
To make matters worse, the only water they have access to is from streams and ponds. That
water is usually full of diseases and makes themselves and their families very sick. Adults

face the decision on a daily basis between dehydration and sickness from the water they
drink. Even worse, they have to face this decision for their children.
Is dirty water better than no water at all?
Having no water has devastating effects both on individuals and communities. People need
water in order to live and if they do not have any, or they have too little, they will become
dangerously, even life-threateningly, dehydrated.
Communities are affected by a lack of water because crops will not grow and so food
becomes scarce. With no water, villages become dirty and unhygienic, increasing the risks of
disease spreading.
However, the risks of drinking dirty water are just as great as drinking no water at all. For
every five children that die in developing countries, one will die because of water related
diseases. The choice between life-threatening dehydration and life-threatening water related
disease is not a choice that any person should have to make. And there really is no need for
this choice to exist, as there is a solution.
What is the solution?
The solution is surprisingly simple and inexpensive. Long-lasting water projects can be built
in communities for relatively small amounts of money.
These water projects include wells, dams and rain catchment systems, which provide a
reliable source of water that is safe to drink. It is not just the practical systems being
implemented that make a difference, though. Providing training in hygiene ensures that the
water and the village remain clean and healthy.
These water projects are not expensive to set up and the impact that they have on a
community, and the individuals within the community, are priceless. Having a well in or close
to the village means that there is no need for anyone to spend their days walking to collect
water. This means that the 440 million days that are missed by school children because of
water related diseases can be spent gaining an education. More importantly, the choice
between dehydration and sickness is no longer a daily decision.
You can be a part of making this simple but tremendous change. All you need to do is log on
to www.plan-uk.org to find out how you help in making Africas drinking water safe
bysponsoring a child in Africa.
http://www.triplepundit.com/podium/problems-solutions-safe-water-africa/

RURAL AND URBAN WATER ISSUES IN

AFRICA
Lori Lewis (Guest Writer)

Water Crisis
Spotlight Content

Why Water?

Solving the Crisis

Stats and Figures

What is Water Scarcity?

Back to the Research Center

Africa faces huge challenges with multiple issues that adversely affect public health.
One major challenge is the ability for both rural and urban Africans to access a clean
water supply. According to the WHO (2006), only 59% of the world's population had
access to adequate sanitation systems, and efforts to achieve the Millennium

Development Goal, which is aiming for 75% by the year 2015, will fall short by nearly
half a billion people.
The situation of access to clean water and sanitation in rural Africa is even more
dismal than the previous statistics imply. The WHO (2006) stated that, in 2004, only
16% of people in sub-Saharan Africa had access to drinking water through a
household connection (an indoor tap or a tap in the yard). Not only is there poor
access to readily accessible drinking water, even when water is available in these
small towns, there are risks of contamination due to several factors. When wells are
built and water sanitation facilities are developed, they are improperly maintained to
due to limited financial resources. Water quality testing is not performed as often as
is necessary, and lack of education among the people utilizing the water source
leads them to believe that as long as they are getting water from a well, it is safe.
Once a source of water has been provided, quantity of water is often given more
attention than quality of water (Awuah, Nyarko, Owusu, & Osei-Bonsu, 2009).
There are limited sources of water available to provide clean drinking water to the
entire population of Africa. Surface water sources are often highly polluted, and
infrastructure to pipe water from fresh, clean sources to arid areas is too costly of an
endeavor. Groundwater is the best resource to tap to provide clean water to the
majority of areas in Africa, especially rural Africa, and groundwater has the benefit of
being naturally protected from bacterial contamination and is a reliable source
during droughts. However, the high costs associated with drilling for water, and the
technical challenges in finding sources that are large enough to serve the population
in need, present challenges that limit tapping the resource. Groundwater is not a failsafe resource, either, when it comes to providing clean water. There may be
contamination of the water with heavy metals, and bacteria may be introduced by
leaking septic systems or contaminated wells. For these reasons, it is important that
groundwater be monitored frequently, which is costly and requires technical abilities
that may not be present in rural areas (Awuah, et al., 2009).
The implications of lack of clean water and access to adequate sanitation are
widespread. Young children die from dehydration and malnutrition, results of

suffering from diarrheal illnesses that could be prevented by clean water and good
hygiene (Metwally, Ibrahim, Saad, & Abu El-Ela, 2006). Diseases such as cholera are
spread rampantly during the wet season. Women and young girls, who are the major
role-players in accessing and carrying water, are prevented from doing incomegenerating work or attending school, as the majority of their day is often spent
walking miles for their daily water needs. They are also at an increased risk for
violence since they travel such great distances from their villages on a daily basis,
and are even at risk when they must go to the edge of the village to find a private
place to relieve themselves.
Urban areas face a whole different host of challenges to providing clean water and
sanitation. Rapid growth of urban areas, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, has lead to
large volumes of water being extracted from existing sources. The influx of water, in
addition to the influx in human waste, has outpaced the development of wastewater
management systems, which has lead to pollution of natural water bodies,
unintentional use of wastewater in irrigated agriculture, irregular water supply, and
environmental concerns for aquatic life due to the high concentration of pollutants
flowing into water bodies (Van Rooijen, Biggs, Smout, & Drechsel, 2009).
Overcrowding in urban slums makes it even more difficult to control sanitation issues
and disease outbreaks associated with exposure to raw sewage. It has been reported
that underprivileged urban populations pay exorbitant amounts of money for water,
which is often not even suitable for consumption, while resources allocated to those
living in the wealthy urban areas are heavily subsidized, meaning the wealthy pay
less for cleaner water and better sanitation systems (Fotso, Ezeh, Madise, & Ciera,
2007).

http://thewaterproject.org/water-in-crisis-rural-urban-africa
References
Awuah, E., Nyarko, K.B., Owusu, P.A., & Osei-Bonsu, K. (2009). Small town water
quality. Desalination, 248, 453-459.

Fotso, J., Ezeh, A.C., Madise, N.J., & Ciera, J. (2007). Progress towards the child
mortality millennium development goal in urban sub-Saharan Africa: they dynamics
of population growth, immunization, and access to clean water. BMC Public Health, 7,
218.
Metwally, A.M., Ibrahim, N.A., Saad, A., & Abu El-Ela, M.H. (2006). Improving the roles
of rural women in health and environmental issues. International Journal of
Environmental Health Research, 16(2), 133-144.
Van Rooijen, D.J., Biggs, T.W., Smout, I., & Drechsel, P. (2009). Urban growth,
wastewater production and use in irrigated agriculture: a comparative study of
Accra, Addis Ababa and Hyderabad. Irrigation Drainage Systems, 24, 53-64.
World Health Organization. (2006). Meeting the MDG drinking water and sanitation
target: the urban and rural challenge of the decade. Retrieved from
http://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/monitoring/jmpfinal.pdf