Africa: The Water and Sanitation Challenge

This blog is inspired by a figure (see Figure 1) that I came across when reading Thompson et al (2000) 's research about the changes in urban water use in East Africa between 1967 and 1997.  Figure 1. Mean per Capita Water Use in Urban Areas of East Africa Overall, the mean per capita water use in urban areas in East Africa decreased over the three decades. The water use from piped water sources also decreased. However, the usage of unpiped water resources increased. Mathematically, the compound annual annual growth rate (CAGR) of the unpiped water resource is 1.53% and -2.18% for piped water resources. It means that every year people would reduce their piped water usage by 2.18% as compared to last year and increase their water usage from unpiped resources by 1.53%.  Now, let's think about what else had happened during that period. Africa went through an accelerating urbanisation process. Maps produced by OECD (see Figure 2) show that in 1970, there were only 4 countries that

Water and Sanitation Water, Sanitation and Africa. What do these three key words about the blog reminds you? Let's first look into one possible combination -- Water and Sanitation. Does this sound more familiar? Every day, we encounter issues and problems about water and sanitation. This can occur when using soap to wash our hands. By making our hands clean, the transmission of diseases can be reduced. WHO has found that using hand soap can reduce stomach-related illnesses by 50% and respiratory illnesses by 33.3%. Or the scenario can be the water we drink. It is a common sense that contaminated water cause health problems. In Flint, Michigan, it is reportedly that the water supply across the city was contaminated by lead ( Pulido, 2016 ). This has already caused development retardation among children. Not only in the United States, but also in London, water and sanitation were a challenge during the cholera outbreak. John Snow discovered the correlation between the contaminated w