September 2003 Vol.9 No.3

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Habitat Debate September 2003

A message from the Executive Director

The theme this year of WorldHabitat Day on 6 Octoberspearheaded by the Brazilian city

of Rio de Janeiro is water and sanitation.Never before has there been such clearinternational consensus that sustainabledevelopment starts with health anddignity. These fundamental conditions ofhuman development cannot be metwithout sustained investment in safewater and basic sanitation.

According to UN-HABITAT estimates,60 per cent of the world’s population willbe living in urban areas by 2015, the yearset by world leaders to achieve the waterand sanitation related MillenniumDevelopment Goals. It is further estimatedthat 90 per cent of the population increasebetween now and 2015 will be in urbanareas. And most of that increase will be inthe inner-city slums and squattersettlements of developing countries. Inthe slums of Nairobi, the bustees ofKolkata or the favelas of Rio de Janeiro,providing safe water and basic sanitationto the urban poor is a critical challengefacing the world today.

Recognizing this challenge, theGoverning Council of UN-HABITAT hascalled for concerted action by theinternational community help developingcountries achieve the MillenniumDevelopment Goals related to water and

sanitation. The Commission onSustainable Development will also focuson water, sanitation and humansettlements during the first cycle of itsdeliberations (2004-2005) following theWorld Summit on SustainableDevelopment.A strong political commitment at both thenational and local level will be crucial toachieving success. This was underscoredby this year’s G8 Summit, , which adoptedan Action Plan for Water, committingleaders of the world’s wealthiest and mostpowerful countries to give priorityassistance to poorer nations that make apolitical commitment to place safedrinking water and basic sanitation at thetop of their poverty eradication andsustainable development agendas.

The urban water crisis must be recognisedfor what it really is: a crisis of governance- weak policies and poor management,rather than a crisis of scarcity. Cities needsound policies and the political will to backthem up; strengthened institutions andtrained managers to run them; aresponsible private sector and anenlightened public sector to work handin hand; and finally, informed publicopinion and active participation ofcommunities to draw upon the vastresources of the civil society. In short,cities need an enabling environmentwhich would allow all stakeholders to pooltogether their resources to meet theirneeds.

Sanitation and hygiene promotion shouldreceive priority in their own right. In fact,the focus of the international communityon water in the past has often masked thegrowing problem of poor sanitation. Thisis the most dehumanising aspect of thedaily battle for survival of the urban poor.In countries around the world, a publiclystated government policy on sanitationand hygiene is long overdue.

There is an alarming decline in per capitainvestment in both water and sanitationin the cities of most developing countries.The annual flow of resources to the sectorwill have to increase all round if theMillennium Development Goal related towater and sanitation is to be reached. Infact, these resources will have to bedoubled, at a minimum.

Systematic tracking and review ofprogress towards water and sanitationtargets will be equally important.Monitoring and assessment will also helptarget international cooperation for thepoor more effectively.

World Habitat Day this year is anopportunity to build on the globalconsensus to meet this critical challenge.

Anna Kajumulo TibaijukaExecutive Director

WORLD HABITAT DAYwill be celebratedaround the world

on6 October.

The main ceremony willbe in Rio de Janeiro.

For details see page 23

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Habitat Debate September 2003

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Habitat Debate September 2003Global Overview

Water and sanitation in citiestranslating global goals into local actionBy Kalyan Ray

Cholera is endemic in EastAfrica. Yet every couple of

years when it rains heavily, stormwater washes accumulated human waste,mainly from informal settlements lackingminimum sanitation facilities, into openboreholes and other water sources usedby the poor for drinking water. The resultis a cholera epidemic.

The most recent cholera epidemicwhich raged in East Africa in 1997 and1998, is still fresh in our minds. Withina span of a few months in late 1997,the epidemic, which started in someslums and squatter settlements, spreadlike bush fire in the region, killingthousands in Kenya, Tanzania andUganda. The three countries sufferedheavily, not only from lost lives, butalso from lost exports and a drop intourism.

Sadly, the East African choleraoutbreak was in many ways like a slowmotion video replay of what happened inPeru when a similar cholera outbreak hitits capital Lima in 1991. At the time, Perulost nearly US$ 1.5 billion in three monthsbecause the fishing industry collapsedand tourism fell back.

Both cases, could have been avoidedwith a modest investment in basicsanitation and safe drinking water,particularly in the densely populatedinformal urban settlements. Thedisastrous human toll and the effects ontrade and tourism need never haveoccurred; enormous national medical billscould have been saved, while humansuffering and loss of lives could havebeen prevented.

The good news is that the lessonslearnt from Peru and East Africa, and the

years of struggle by the United Nationsand its partners, have finally stirred theinternational community to action. Waterand sanitation emerged as a keydevelopment issue at the World Summiton Sustainable Development inJohannesburg, South Africa, last year. ThePlan of Implementation adopted by thesummit ratified the Millennium Goal andthe related target on safe drinking water. Italso included a similar target for sanitation.

Equally important was the inclusion ofshelter alongside water and other keyissues in the Johannesburg Declaration.It recognized what was emphatically statedby Mrs. Anna Tibaijuka, the ExecutiveDirector of UN-HABITAT at the plenaryof the Summit: “The battle for water andsanitation will have to be fought in humansettlements, particularly in the slums andshanties of the growing urban areas ofdeveloping countries.”

More recently, further commitment ofthe international community to keep waterand sanitation at the top of the politicalagenda came from the Commission onSustainable Development earlier this year,when it adopted Water, Sanitation andHuman Settlements as the thematic focusfor the first cycle of its deliberations (2004-2005).

Much, however, remains to beaccomplished to translate this politicalcommitment into concrete action at locallevel. As a member of the United NationsMillennium Task Force, UN-HABITAT hasrecently carried out the first globalassessment on the state of water andsanitation in the world’s cities. The report,Water and Sanitation in the World’sCities: Local Action for Global Goals, waslaunched in Osaka during the 3rd WorldWater Forum in March this year. It bringsout three critical areas of action priorities.

First, the urgent need to appraisepolicy makers of the true magnitude of theurban water and sanitation crisis. Officialstatistics often disguise the real problemof the poor in cities and towns. Forexample, in Kenya, official statisticsindicate that 96 per cent of urban residentshave access to ‘improved’ sanitation. Areality check can, however, give a verydifferent picture. In many slums in Nairobi,150 or more people are forced to queue up

Diseases spread rapidly when human and household waste accumulates in a stream people usefor their daily water needs as in this picture taken in Nairobi’s Mathare slum.Photo © Justo Casal/UN-HABITAT

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Habitat Debate September 2003 Global Overview

daily to use a single public toilet. It isunbelievable but true that a slum dwellerin Nairobi, forced to rely on private watervendors, pays five to seven times morefor a litre of water than an average northAmerican citizen. The health andeconomic impacts of these servicedeficiencies can be very costly to acountry in the long run.

Secondly, there is a widening gapbetween the growing demand and thecurrent provisioning of water andsanitation services. The Millennium TaskForce estimates the current financial gapto be around $16 billion a year, a largepart of which must go to address thesanitation needs of the urban poor. Astrong political commitment at nationallevel and further strengthening of on-going sector reforms to improvegovernance at local level will be crucialto enhance the flow of investment in waterand sanitation. Future capacity-buildingefforts must also be closely linked tofollow-up investment. In Johannesburg,a promising initiative came from the AsianDevelopment Bank, which committed$500 million in loans to bring pro-poorinvestment to Asian Cities through theWater for Asian Cities programme ofUN-HABITAT.

Africa – a rapidly urbanizing continentwith the worst water and sanitationcoverage among all the regions – needsspecial attention of the internationalcommunity in its struggle to achieve theinternationally agreed targets. Over thepast three years, UN-HABITAT hashelped African countries to improve themanagement of water and sanitation intheir cities. With the support of a broadcoalition of donors, the Water for AfricanCities programme has created an enablingenvironment for new investment inAfrican cities. The internationalcommunity showed its willingness tosupport this process at the G-8 Summitheld in Evian in June this year. A notableannouncement came from Canada whichcommitted $15 million to UN-HABITAT’sWater and Sanitation Trust Fund forAfrican cities.

Finally, meeting this dauntingchallenge calls for a broad-basedpartnership of all key stakeholders on thewater scene: governments, the privatesector and the communities themselves.Governments and city authorities mustcreate an enabling environment for thispartnership to flourish.

Community participation in the watersector will not only ensure that the

community is provided with what it wantsrather than what the government thinksit needs, but will also provide thecommunity with a sense of belonging andownership. This can go a long waytowards cost recovery and long-termsustainability of services.

Public-private partnerships can bringin efficiency gains and cost-effectivenessin the water sector and effectiveregulatory control can ensure that poorneighbourhoods are not neglected. Astrong political commitment,transparency in management and soundstrategies will be needed to attract moreprivate sector investment and risk-takingin urban services.

World Habitat Day this year will focuson Water and Sanitation for Cities. Thiscould be a defining moment for nationalplanners, policy-makers and cityauthorities to reflect on the challengeahead and to dedicate themselves anewto a task that a statement by world leadersin Johannesburg called “humanity’s bestinvestment to achieve development andsustainability.”

Kalyan Ray is the chief of UN-HABITAT’sWater, Sanitation and InfrastructureBranch.

Women and children always bear the brunt when water and sanitation conditions are dire. Photo © UN-HABITAT

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Habitat Debate September 2003

Pushing for progress on the Millennium Development GoalsBy Sir Richard Jolly

The Millennium DevelopmentGoals (MDGs) for water andsanitation are really quite modest.

In the 1980s, the world set the goal ofwater and sanitation for all by 1990. Afew years before that, in Mar del Plata,Argentina, in 1977, access to safe waterhad been recognized as a universalhuman right - by definition a right of allpeople in all countries.

In contrast, our goals today are onlyto halve the proportions withoutaffordable access to safe water andadequate sanitation by 2015. True, theseare minimum targets and some countrieslike South Africa managed to achieve thegoal of halving those without access tosafe water in only seven years and havenow fixed 2008 as the goal for completecoverage or water, and 2010 for sanitation.

Pay and use in IndiaThere are hundreds of clean “pay anduse” public toilets in a dozen majorcities and more than a millionhousehold latrines. For over 20 years,Sulabh International has pioneeredinnovative approaches which haveproved their effectiveness – andreleased more than 35,000“scavengers” and their families fromthe dirty and degrading work ofcleaning out bucket privies and otherlatrines. Backing up these socialinnovations is a programme oftechnologies – encouraging the ‘twinpit’ household latrine, which has thebenefits of the VIP model withadditional advantage of built-in on-site disposal, eliminating surface andsub-soil pollution and requiring onlya seventh of the water needed forconventional flushing. Seeing isbelieving as I can verify from my ownexperience.

The walk of shame inBangladesh

Some 100 communities havecleaned up their villages to achieve“100 percent sanitation”. This is anew approach, focused not onindividuals, but on the wholevil lage. I t shows how, as acommunity, they can deal with theirsanitation challenge together.Kamal Kar summarises thefascinating details, many counter-intuitive: no subsidies, no standardmodel, no counting up all thelatrines constructed. Instead, fieldstaff of the Village EducationResource Centre go on a villagewalk with as many of the locals aspossible, analysing the sanitationproblems, checking the status oflatrines. Often it becomes a “walkof shame” that prompts thecommunity to form a water andsanitation committee and draft anaction plan. After that, the goal is“100% sanitation”, but individualsare left to decide themselves whatsort of latrine. More than 20 newtoilet models have emerged, somecosting the equivalent of only US$1.27 per unit.

Goals can make a difference. Thoughthe goals of the Development Decade forSafe Water and Sanitation (1981-1990)were demonstrably over-ambitious, theDecade was by no means a flop as some

depict. In fact, it stimulated more progressfor both water and sanitation than theworld has ever seen, before or since.

According to figures from reports ofthe World Health Organization (WHO),the United Nations Children’s Fund(UNICEF) and the Water Supply andSanitation Collaborative Council(WSSCC), during the 1980s, an estimated1.3 billion additional people got access tosafe water and 960 million to basicsanitation. This raised the percentage inthis position from 43 per cent in 1980 to 79per cent in 1990 for water, and from 25 percent to 55 per cent for sanitation. In theurban areas, over 550 million additionalpeople gained access to both water andsanitation, raising urban coverage forwater over the 1980s from 75 to 95 percent and for sanitation from 53 to 82 percent.

In short, global goals can help, morethan is often recognized. A broader reviewof performance and outcomes in relationto some 50 global goals set by the UNover the last four decades, shows thatmost goals have been “largely” or“considerably” achieved – meaning thatsome 30 to 50 developing countriescovering a third or more of the developingworld’s population have realised thetarget by the target date or soon after.

Global goals have also made adifference in building capacity in thedeveloping countries, encouraging afocused approach in developmentplanning and insti l l ing costconsciousness in operations. Fewglobal goals have been total failures –though the 0.7 per cent goals for aid(Official Development Assistance)stands out as one of the goals leastachieved – along with halving maternalmortality by 2000, and ending globalhunger within a decade, set at the WorldFood Conference in 1974.

What now will it take to achieve thewater goal set at the Millennium Summitin 2000 and the sanitation goal agreed atthe Johannesburg summit lastSeptember? Seven steps are vital:

All countries need to prepare NationalPlans of Action with their own targetsadopted and adapted in relation to localconditions.

Opinion

Sir Richard Jolly. Photo © WSSCC.

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Habitat Debate September 2003 Opinion

All countries need to put sufficientresources in government budgets toensure enough catalytic support to getaction underway in line with the targetsand enough to ensure sustained action forthe next decade, along with provision foreffective systems of maintenance.Government does not have to pay foreverything – it must give the lead.

More effective ways have to be foundto empower women and strengthen theirinfluence in decision-making, on planning,maintenance and management of water andsanitation systems.

Aid donors can help by providing theirown catalytic support and encouragementwithin the framework of long-termcommitment. Ideally, there also needs tobe firm commitment or at leastunderstanding of some extra support tomaintain the momentum of a goodprogramme, especially if a country isknocked off course by unforeseendifficulties like natural disasters, or, equallylikely, by a price collapse of one or more ofits exports.

Another new direction is synergy withthe other Millennium Development Goals.Much more can be achieved if buildingmomentum in water and sanitation is linkedto action and support for all the goals, aspart of a broad thrust to poverty reductionon a national and global scale.

Children and youth as agents of changeis another new direction. If schools andplaces of worship can show the importanceof basic hygiene to children, they willspread the message at home. But for thisto be effective, the school must enable

Cost-effective designs inBolivia

A joint venture between the Boliviangovernment, a private water andsewerage supplier, the World Bank andthe Swedish International DevelopmentAgency used construction training andhygiene education to improve sanitationand hygiene practices in the city of ElAlto. By using cost-effective designsand involving the community in theconstruction of the water and seweragenetworks, connection costs werereduced by around 40 per cent.Households receiving hygieneeducation were twice as likely toconstruct a bathroom in their homesand significantly reduced unsanitarypractices such as throwing used waterinto the streets or recycling water withinthe home.

children to practice what the schoolpreaches. Separate latrines for girls andboys are a must – and a goal of theWASH campaign for 2010.

Finally, partnership and coalition.UN-HABITAT is one UN agency whichleads in partnerships. The Urban WASH(Water, Sanitation and Hygiene)campaign of UN-HABITAT and WSSCCis a close partnership which hopefullywill enable both to be pioneers in thecreation of a coalition between the localbodies and governments on one hand,and civil society on the other. Unlesspeople are really brought into the centreof all planning, action andimplementation, the real goal will neverbe achieved and it will not besustainable.

New initiatives in AfricaA new awareness through AfricanMinisterial Council on Water and theNew Partnership for Africa’sDevelopment (NEPAD) has helped alarge number of African countries todevelop the partnership approachthrough WASH campaigns inMadagascar, Uganda, South Africa,Senegal, and Nigeria. Kenya ismaking new efforts to develop aspecial approach to the urbanproblems in Nairobi and other areas.

which millions the world over depend forsafe water and sanitation.

A partnership of international actionis also needed to create a more enablingenvironment to achieve the goals. Thenew UN-HABITAT-WSSCC WASHcampaign will go a long way todemonstrate how much positive humanenergy can be released when people areat the centre of all activities towardsachieving the goals.

Sir Richard Jolly is the Chair, WaterSupply and Sanitation CollaborativeCouncil. For further information seewww.wsscc.org

All the MDGs are important.Achieving one will help achieveanother. Ensuring the achievement ofthe hygiene, sanitation and water goalswill not only improve health, it willreduce child mortality and ease theburden on women and girls, leavingthem free time and energy for otherefforts towards poverty reduction andfor girls to attend school.

Because of this, UN-HABITAT, likeall other supporters of the hygiene,sanitation and water goals, needs toadvocate for all the MDGs, and to putwater and sanitation issues at the centreof all goals. Such a partnership ofinternational actions should be createdby leaders like UN-HABITAT to createa more enabling environment withoutwhich it will not be possible for mostpoorer countries to achieve the goals:accelerated debt relief, improved accessto developed country markets for theirexports, and better focused aid.

In a world so prone to conflict, actionis needed to show the risks ofdestroying or poisoning facilities on

In poverty-stricken urban slums throughoutthe developing world, women have to trudgedaily, sometimes for many kilometres, to fetchwater for the home.Photo © Justo Casal/UN-HABITAT

“In the community there isno sanitation, and the waterthat we use is clandestine. Inother words, we don´t existeither for the municipal or forthe state government. We wantto feel part of the city andparticipate in the decisionsrelated to the place where welive.”— Deusimar da Costa, aresident of the Inácio Dias slum inRio de Jaineiro.

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Habitat Debate September 2003

A message from the ADB

Special Messages

The Commission on Sustainable Developmentfocusing on urban slums

Two thirds of the world’spoor are found in Asiaand the Pacific, and one

in three Asians lives on less thanone dollar a day. Of the world’spopulation without access to cleanwater, almost two-thirds live in Asiaand an even greater number lackadequate sanitation.If we are to meet the millennium

development goals to reduce by half the proportion of peoplewithout access to safe drinking water by 2015, and to achieve asignificant improvement in the lives of at least one hundredmillion slum dwellers by 2020, Asia will need to be the focus ofaction.

To achieve these formidable targets, new partnerships needto be established. ADB is therefore very pleased to join forceswith UN-HABITAT to initiate the Water for Asian Citiesprogramme.

This collaboration will initially provide about 10 million dollarsin grants to raise political awareness, build capacity, implementpilot demonstration projects, create an enabling environmentfor investment, and prepare investment proposals for selected

By Børge Brende

An important task for me as Chairman of theCommission on Sustainable

Development (CSD) is to increasethe global focus on problemsfacing urban slums world-wide,and to contribute to improving theconditions faced by slum dwellerson a daily basis. Today, half the world’spopulation lives in towns andcities. Of these, more than 1 billionpeople live in urban slums. Duringthe next decade, we may be forcedto add another 500 million to this

figure. In the Urban Millennium, an incredibly large number ofpeople – children, women and men – will live under extremelyharsh conditions.

The global goal of substantially improving the lives of atleast 100 million slum dwellers by 2020 may look far-fetched.However, this goal represents a strong signal that we shouldwork together to translate our words into action. In order toachieve this goal, we need to address the urban water andsanitation crisis.

Asian cities. Based on these efforts, ADB expects to provideabout 500 million dollars in loans for water supply and sanitationprojects over the next five years. ADB has been engaged in this sector through finance andpolicy dialogue for several decades, and we have gainedsubstantial operational experience. We have learned thatinvestments need to be accompanied by sound regulatoryarrangements, conducive policy environments, and strengthenedinstitutional capacity. A major issue continues to be the need fortariff reforms that will allow financial sustainability and promotenew investments, taking into account the willingness and abilityof poor people to pay for the services. UN-HABITAT has considerable experience in addressingurban challenges, and in building awareness, providingtechnical assistance and strengthening institutional capacity.UN-HABITAT’s global know-how in these areas willcomplement ADB’s role as the main regional financialinstitution. I am therefore very excited about this partnershipbecause the combined efforts of our institutions will be moreeffective than if we acted alone.

This is an excerpt from a speech by Tadao Chino, President ofthe Asian Development Bank

In many slums in developing country cities, 150 or moreinhabitants daily queue up for one public toilet. The health andeconomic impacts of these service deficiencies can be very costlyto a country in the long run – not to mention the personaldetriment these deficiencies represent. Improving water supplyand sanitation services is of crucial importance. The Commission on Sustainable Development has, in myopinion, a special responsibility to address the water andsanitation problems of urban slums. As Chairman of the CSD,I intend to put water, sanitation and human settlement issueshigh on the global agenda. I am pleased to note the leadershipof UN-HABITAT in this respect. Other prerequisites for improving urban slums are securetenure and good urban governance, in particular as regardsto the situation of women. These items are also high on theUN-HABITAT agenda.

It is my hope that the CSD will contribute to releasing thevigorous potential for growth and development inherent inmany slums. We must join forces in order to deliver on ourpromises.

Børge Brende is the Norwegian Minister for Environmentand Chairman of the Commission on SustainableDevelopment (CSD)

Tadao Chino.Photo © ADB

Photo © The Norwegiangovernment

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Habitat Debate September 2003

By Bernhard Griesinger and Marilena Oliveira Griesinger

The role of the Organization of American States

The Organization of American States(OAS), governed by the 34countries of the Americas, is

committed to the MillenniumDevelopment Goal of reducing by half thenumber of people without access to cleanwater and adequate sanitation by 2015.The OAS also shares the emergingconsensus that this challenge will have tobe largely met in our cities, where mostpeople live, consume water and generatewaste.

The OAS’s Unit for SustainableDevelopment and Environment (USDE)has adopted the concept of IntegratedWater Resources Management (IWRM)as a tool to mitigate the contamination anddegradation of watersheds, especiallythose that contribute to the water supplyof cities in the Americas.

The USDE has focused its efforts onencouraging the adoption of waterresources management policies andefficient development of trans-boundarybasins by providing technical support tohelp member countries implement strategicaction plans and by promoting theexchange of information and expertisethrough the Inter-American WaterResources Network (IWRN).

The process of information exchangebegan in 1993 with the First Inter-AmericanDialogue on Water Management (Miami,Florida, USA). Since then, three otherDialogues have taken place. The FourthDialogue, recently held in Brazil, reflectedthe efforts of the countries in waterresources management, and urged thedefinition of appropriate levels of decisionmaking (governance), citizen participationin water management, shared decisionmaking, universal access to water as abasic human right, and sustainable accessto clean water and adequate sanitation forthe Latin American population.

The IWRM concept is based on theintegration of natural, social, economicand political factors at the watershed level,reinforcing interdependency betweenupstream and downstream water users.

It is also a strategy for actioncomprising an institutional framework forlegal, regulatory, and organisational roles;regulatory and financial managementinstruments; and the development,maintenance and operation ofinfrastructure, including water storagestructures and conveyance, wastewatertreatment and watershed protection.

Having in mind this concept, it isrecognised that water, especially fromrivers, is a central feature of the urbanenvironment. Human settlements havealmost always been close to surface orground water, so it is no coincidence thatmany of the world’s great cities are alongriver banks. But besides providing waterfor drinking, agriculture, energy, andtransport, rivers also play a dominant rolein sculpting landscapes and sustainingecosystems.

The IWRM approach considers theriver basin as the unit for action, whereboth land and water have to be managedtogether as they form an integratedecological system.

The USDE has already appliedsuccessfully the concept of IWRM toseveral projects throughout LatinAmerica in partnership withintergovernmental organizations, such asthe Global Environment Facility, theUnited Nations Environment Programme,World Bank, and the Inter-AmericanBank.

The USDE executes a variety oftechnical cooperation projects thataddress the member states’ needs. It alsopromotes international inter-institutionalpartnerships with institutions such as thePan American Health Organization(PAHO), UNEP, the WorldMeteorological Organization (WMO),the Food and Agriculture Organizationof the United Nations (FAO), andUN-HABITAT.

During 2001-2002, the USDE managedprojects worth approximately US $60million, 97 per cent of which came fromexternal funding. The main projects underimplementation with the participation ofOAS are:

Integrated watershed managementpractices for the Pantanal and UpperParaguay River Basin designed topromote integrated sustainablemanagement and development of theUpper Paraguay River Basin.

Integrated management of land-basedactivities in the São Francisco Basin topromote integrated sustainablemanagement and development of the SãoFrancisco River Basin in Brazil.

Strengthening the watermanagement resources sector in Brazilaimed at helping the Brazilian WaterResources Secretariat (SRH) implementthe National Water Resources Policy and

promote the development of specificwater resources projects to strengthen theNational Water Resources ManagementSystem.

The Strategic Action Programme forthe Bermejo Binational River Basin(SAP- Bermejo River Basin). This is thefirst project in international watersfunded by Global Environment Facility(GEF) to establish a strategic actin planfor environmentally sustainabledevelopment in the basin.

The Project for the EnvironmentalProtection and Sustainable IntegratedManagement of the Guaraní Aquifer(SAG). The project is funded by GEF andexecuted in collaboration with Argentina,Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay, with theobjective of establishing a commoninstitutional and technical framework formanaging and preserving the Guaraniaquifer system.

The Strategic Action Program for theintegrated management of waterresources and sustainable developmentof the San Juan River Basin and itsCoastal Zone to ensure the availability ofthe goods and services provided bywater resources for conserving naturalecosystems and social and economicdevelopment options.

Integrating management ofwatersheds and coastal areas in small-island States in the Caribbean to helpthe participating countries improve theirwatershed and coastal zone management.The project is funded by GEF, andimplemented by UNEP and UNDP.

A regional framework for thesustainable development andmanagement of water resources of thePlata River Basin to stimulatecooperation among the five La Plata Basincountries by identifying common waterresources, policy issues and formulatinga cooperative framework whichaddresses trans-boundary waterresources issues.

Bernhard Griesinger is a senior waterresources management specialist at theUnit for Susustainable Development andEnvironment of the Organisation ofAmerican States. Marilena OliveiraGriesinger, a geographer, is Professor atthe Federal University of Uberlandia,Brazil, and a consultant on waterresources management.

Forum

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Habitat Debate September 2003

A water pollution crisis in the AmericasBy Luís Eduardo Galvão

Cities in the world, especiallyones located in lessdeveloped regions, such as

Latin America and the Caribbean, faceserious challenges in the managementof water resources. Given the crucialneed to supply water to the population,treatment of sewage is unavoidable.

The issue becomes critical whenfresh water is threatened by the verywater source supplying the cities. Ifthere is a high degree of pollution, thenthe costs of treatment rise tostratospheric levels. The samesituation occurs with the removal andtreatment of sewage.

In São Paulo, 1.5 million people livenear the Bilings and Guarapirangareservoirs that account for the supplyof 21 per cent of water to themetropolitan region of Brazil’s biggestcity. These important reservoirs arebecoming more and more polluted. Thecost of water treatment chemicalsrocketed from from R$ 34.2 millions(US$ 11.7 million) in 1998 to R$ 60million in 2002.

While water production increased 8per cent in four years, the volume ofchemicals used in the water treatmentprocess increased 40 per cent hitting170,000 tons per year — the equivalentto 17,000 truckloads — just to make itsafe to drink.

In Latin America and the Caribbean,the degree of difficulty of access todrinking water is mainly due to thepollution of the water by domesticsewage. The region is considered richin water, with 30 per cent of the planet’sreserves, but even so it manages toleave over 117 million of its inhabitantsin urban and rural areas without accessto adequate services for a safe watersupply and sewage treatment.

Tierramerica magazine recentlywarned of the problems of waterresources management: the pollutionof the rivers and seas of Latin Americaand the Caribbean caused by theuncontrolled discharge of untreateddomestic sewage for decades is at thetop of the list of the environmentalproblems affecting coastal cities,famous seaside resorts and rivercommunities of the region. Theproblem has become critical becausemore than 60 per cent of the region’s

population live in coastal zones, and60 of the 77 largest cities are locatednear rivers and coastlines.

The Peruvian city of Lima, for example,discharges 18,000 liters per second ofwater waste into the Pacific Ocean. Theresults are beaches unsuitable for bathingand the spread of diseases such ashepatitis, diarrhea and cholera that struckPerú in 1991, killing thousands of people,and generating expenses of millions ofdollars in health and adversely affectingexports and tourism in the country.

Even the most famous seasideresorts of Latin America and theCaribbean are affected. A lack ofsewage treatment is contaminating thearea around Cancun and although localauthorities show the success of theirdecontamination plans, researchcenters and ecologists of the regionsay that such famous beaches as Viñadel Mar, in Chile, Cartagena de Indias,on the Caribbean coast of Colombia,Acapulco on the Mexican Pacific coastand many others no longer offer safebeaches for bathing.

The great tourist beaches of Rio deJaneiro – Copacabana, Ipanema and Barrada Tijuca – are unsuitable in many partsat certain times. These beaches are savedfrom having much more serious pollutionproblems only because they are locatedon the open sea, the opposite situationof Guanabara bay, that receives, directlyor indirectly, waste materials from 15municipalities.

Even the heavenly beaches of theCaribbean, annually visited by 100million tourists, that contribute 43 percent of the GDP of an area withoutresources to invest in sanitation,receive between 80 to 90 per cent ofwaste water without previoustreatment. In Haiti, Barbados andJamaica beaches are being degradedby the presence of fecal matter.

Luís Eduardo Galvão, lectures on theenvironment and international relationsat Bennet University in Rio de Janeiro.

Proper piped water systems would put an end to puddles of contaminated water like this one ina slum in Rio de Janeiro. Photo © UN-HABITAT

Forum

“Countries in the Americasrecognise the grave situation, asnoted in the recommendations ofrecent specialized meetings on thesubject. They are making strongefforts to implement new laws, andenforce existing legislation on thedischarge of municipal wastewater.” — Bernhard Griesinger

Organization of American States

The Gulf of California has 160,000units of fecal matter per 100 milliliters ofwater. The permissible limit establishedby the Mexican health authorities is 500units. The gulf is on the north of thecountry, between the states of BajaCalifornia and Sonora, where Guaymas,one of the main port cities is located, andwhere the Colorado, Sonora, Yaqui andFuerte rivers flow into the ocean.Specialists noted the largest volume ofpollutants comes from municipaldrainage, mainly fecal waste.

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Habitat Debate September 2003 Forum

By Pireh Otieno

Teaching water conservation in African schools

As part of its Water for AfricanCities programme UN-HABITAThas embarked on a water

education campaign to teach children andlocal communities about the importanceof conservation in an effort to cut backwaste.

For the first time, this initiative hasbrought together professionals fromthe education, urban and water andenvironment sectors to bring aboutpositive and lasting changes in attitudeand behaviour towards water at alllevels of society.

Children and young people are thebest ambassadors to bring aboutpositive changes in attitudes towardswater conservation. Water education inschools and local communities cantherefore play an important role inbringing about a new water-use ethicin cities.

“The centrality offreshwater in our livescannot be overestimated.Water has been a majorfactor in the rise and fallof civil izations. It hasbeen a source of tensionsand fierce competitionbetween nations thatcould become even worseif present trends continue.Lack of access to water formeeting basic needs suchas health, hygiene andfood security underminesdevelopment and inflictsenormous hardship onmore than a bil l ionmembers of the humanfamily. And its qualityreveals everything, rightor wrong, that we do insafeguarding the globalenvironment.”— United NationsSecretary-General Kof iAnnan

The idea stems from a meeting ofinternational and regional experts ineduca t ion and wate r resourcesmanagement convened by UN-HABITAT in collaboration with UNEPand the Stockholm InternationalWater Ins t i tu te (SIWI) inJohannesburg, South Africa in 2001.NGOs active in water education werealso brought in to help devise thebest strategy to promote a betterunderstanding of water as a keysocial, economic and environmentalresource.

They came up with an approachcalled Value-based Water Educationto impart information on water,sanitation and hygiene and inspirenew attitudes that promote wise andsustainable use of water. The Value-based Water Education initiativefocuses on three key areas – the

establishment of water classrooms,sett ing up a water curriculum inselected schools as a pilot project,and then helping raise awareness inthe local community.

UN-HABITAT is working withSwedish Water Development AB(SWD) in establishing on-site waterclassrooms in each part icipat ingcountry. SWD is helping developValue-based Water Educat ionresource mate r ia l , and runningtraining courses for teachers.

Non-formal educa t ion wi thcommunity initiatives is centeredaround children bringing home totheir communities what they havelearned at school.

Pireh Otieno is a Project Officer withUN-HABITAT’s Water, Sanitation andInfrastructure Branch.

In the Value-based Water Education programme, one of the things schoolchildrenare being taught is not to leave taps running unnecessarily. Photo © UN-HABITAT

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Habitat Debate September 2003Forum

By Arthur C. McIntosh

The poor pay more for their water

Winnie Flores lives on theMangahan Floodway inMetro Manila. She is one of

about 3 million people who, almost fiveyears after the privatisation of Manilawater supply, still have no access topiped water. They pay almost as muchfor water as for rent. Winniecould greatly improve the qualityof her accommodation and herdignity in the neighbourhood ifshe could get connected to pipedwater. She sighs, “It’s coming nextyear they say.”

But she has heard that storyfor the past five years. Recently,when her husband lost his job,they and her four children had tomove to cheaper accommodationat 1,000 pesos (US$ 18) a month.Yet Winnie pays 900 pesos amonth for 10 cubic meters ofwater, while householdsconnected to the water mains payabout 100 pesos a month for 20cubic meters. She gets her waterfrom two sources. One is from anentrepreneur who drilled a welland pipes it to a small number offamilies in the neighbourhood.The water costs 44 pesos percubic meter but is of poor quality.Twice a day, a water vendordelivers 20-liter jerry cans ofdrinking water from a water mainabout 2 km away. She buys 4containers a day at 5 pesos acontainer.

Why are Winnie and so many othersin this deplorable situation? It is not aquestion of land tenure — theneighbourhood has concrete streetsand many homes built in permanentmaterials. It’s all about where the fundsare. When privatisation wasintroduced, the advantages, muchheralded, were that the private sectorwould invest funds in water supply andimprove efficiency, by for examplereducing non-revenue water. In reality,after almost five years, non-revenuewater has not reduced greatly and newfunding has been much less thanexpected. What happened?

The “water crisis” in Manila in 1996was the rationale for privatisation thatwas completed in just 18 months.Unfortunately two mistakes were made.

First, the contracts with two differentconcessionaires were not made on thebasis of a formal and publicisedgovernment policy. There was noindependent regulator to monitor theimplementation of that policy and seethat the contract conformed to the

it is not in your contract.” Of course,had the contract been based on a policyof connecting the poor, it would havebeen easy for the two parties to gettogether and amend the contract so asto align it with policy and agree on atariff hike. After all , both

concessionaires are guaranteed acertain rate of return based on thewhole contract. But there was nopolicy, only a constricting,restrictive contract. So for acouple of years, the government(not the regulator!), fought toresist the tariff increase. Who wasthis hurting? Without a doubt, thesti l l unconnected poor, l ikeWinnie.

One of the mysteries is whythe NGOs did not come to the helpof the poor and demand a tariffincrease. In the end, the poorpeople asked for the tariffincrease themselves. The logicwas simple. If the tariff for thosepeople connected, was raised froman average of 5 pesos per cubicmeter to 10 pesos per cubic meterand that allowed theconcessionaires to connect thepoor, then the poor would go frompaying 90 pesos per cubic meterto 10 pesos per cubic meter andbe much better off. Is it not toomuch to ask those connected towater to help pay for those notconnected to get the sameaccess? In the end, the

government capitulated and gave thetariff adjustment to bothconcessionaires.

What are the lessons to be learned?First, policy is everything, but it mustbe in front of the public at all times.Second, counter-intuitively, hiking thetariffs does help the poor who are notyet connected to piped water. Third, inthe future, investments in large citywater supply should be financeddirectly from tariffs.

Arthur C . McIn tosh was un t i lrecently the Principal Water SupplySpecialist, Asian Development Bank,Mani la , Phi l ipp ines . The v iewsexpressed are those of the authorand do not necessarily represent theviews of the ADB.

policy. Instead the former MetropolitanWaterworks and Sewerage System wasappointed as a regulator but ended upas a contract administrator. The secondmistake was to have concessionairescompete to provide water at a low tariff.The winning bids were 57 per cent and26 per cent of the pre-bid MWSS tariff.What signal did that send toconsumers? Use more of our veryplentiful water. It lulled consumers intoa false sense of security.

So along came El Nino, then theAsian currency crisis, and soon one ofthe concessionaires started screamingfor a major tariff adjustment. Whenwould they get the money to get onwith the efficiency measures andconnect the millions without access topiped water? The answer was, “ Sorry,

An elderly man warily negotiates a muck-laden stream inMathare, Nairobi. Photo © Justo Casal/UN-HABITAT

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Habitat Debate September 2003 Forum

Toilets for allBy Bindeshwar Pathak

Adequate supplies of safe waterand sanitation are essential fora healthy and productive life.

Water that is not safe for humanconsumption can spread disease.Inadequate sanitation causes pollutionwhich adversely affects agriculturalproductivity. Industrial activity is hitdue to illness-related absenteeism.

Urban populations in developingcountries are growing at very fast rates.Rapid urbanisation creates moredemand for basic services like water,sanitation, drainage, refuse disposal,and housing which local authorities areunable to meet. The gap betweendemand and supply is continuouslywidening. A closely related issue ofrapid and uncontrolled urban growth isthe creation of slums. In many cities indeveloping countries more than half thepopulation live in slums. Thedebilitating effects of unhealthy livingconditions and deterioratingenvironments lower the productivepotential of the very people who canleast afford it . Among the poor, thewomen and children suffer the most.

Globally, more than 2.4 billionpeople are without adequate basicsanitation facilities. In India, more than733 million people out of population of1,027 million, according to the 2001Census, either defecate in the open oruse insanitary buckets, dry privies orcommunity facilities.

Poor sanitation coverage in India isprimarily due to insufficient motivation,a low level of awareness of theproblems and a lack of affordablesanitation technology. Most of thesepeople are from lower socio-economicgroups and are not aware of the healthand environmental benefits ofsanitation. It is still not seen as a high

sanitation since 1970. The twin pit flushtoilet, popularly known in India asSulabh toilet , is an importantsanitation breakthrough. Thetechnology is simple, affordable,appropriate and socially acceptable. Itrequires only two litres of water to flushexcreta. The cost of a single toiletvaries from the equivalent of US$ 10 toUS$ 1,000 depending on the size of theunit. Sulabh has constructed more than1.2 million such toilets in individualhouses.

The provision of public toiletcomplexes at public places and in slumson a pay and use basis is anotherimportant Sulabh landmark. Pavementdwellers, the floating population,rickshaw pullers and those who cannotafford their own household toilets, canall use well designed and managed pay& use community toilets with bath,urinal and laundry facilities. Thissystem has proved a boon to the localauthorities in their endeavour to keepcities, especially slums, clean. Sulabhhas constructed so far over 5,500 suchtoilet complexes in different parts ofthe country, providing maintenancearound the clock.

Recycling and reuse of humanwaste for biogas is an important wayto get rid of health hazards from humanexcreta. Sulabh is the pioneeringOrganization in the field of biogasgeneration from public toiletcomplexes. The Sulabh biogas plantdoes not require manual handling ofhuman excreta and there is completerecycling and resource recovery from

the waste. Biogas is uti l ised forcooking, lamps, electricity generationand body warming during winter.

Sulabh has also developed a newand convenient technology by whichthe effluent from the biogas plant isturned into a colourless, odourless andpathogen free liquid manure. Thetechnology is based on charcoalfiltration and ultraviolet rays.

Much of the demand for latrinescomes from women as they suffer themost due to non-availability of thesefacilities. Women have by far the mostinfluence in determining householdhygiene practices.

Although low-cost technology iseasy to implement, it requires ingenuityand expertise for precision inconstruction and competence insupervision to guard against faultyconstruction and pollution of groundwater. Training of personnel foroperations and management istherefore essential. Sulabh employees make house-to-house contact to educate and motivatehouseholders and disseminateinformation about the system. Because ch i ld ren a re morereceptive to new ideas, Sulabh visitsschools to make children aware of theimportance of sanitation and personalhygiene In order to inculcate a habitof using toi lets at a young age,schools are provided with sanitationfacilities.

Dr. Bindeshwar Pathak is the Founderof the Sulabh Sanitation Movement.

In 2002, the World Summit onSustainable Development inJohannesburg, South Africa, agreedto halve, by the year 2015 the numberof people without basic sanitation.

priority, resulting in absence of people’sparticipation. The Sulabh Sanitation Movement hasbeen actively involved in thedevelopment and implementation ofsustainable technology in the field of

“I live in Patil Estate slum. There were no taps in our slum.We used to go to the toilet near the riverside. The insects usedto climb up our legs. We went todefacate under the bushes ...then they made open drains, but the children defacate in them...” — SANGITA CHAVAN, a resident of a slum in Pune, India

“Without clean water you can get diseases.”— Maureen Nyango, former Nairobi street child.

“If water were clean, children would not die from cholera.”— John Mwaura, a former Nairobi street child mourning thedeath of a friend who died from cholera.

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Habitat Debate September 2003Forum

This article is excerpted from UN-HABITAT’s new report, Water and Sanitation in the World’s Cities: Local Action for Global Goals

A complex web of partnerships

Urban water and sanitation utilitiesare virtually never sold off toprivate enterprises to use as they

see fit. But there are several models ofprivate sector participation and manyvariations, depending on the legal andregulatory frameworks, the nature of thecompany and the type of contract. In allof these models, regardless of the level ofprivate sector involvement, the publicsector role and the regulatory environmentare critical.

Finance is usually the paramountconsideration driving governments toinvolve the private sector in water andsanitation utilities. Arguments andevidence favouring private sectorparticipation may be influential. Politicalshifts can make a difference. In recentyears, however, public sector decisionsto radically increase the involvement ofprivate enterprises are almost alwaysrelated to the need for finance, even whenundertaken by pro-private-sectorgovernments.

public funds and development assistancecannot finance the level of investmentrequired to expand water and sanitationservices to all of those lacking adequateprovision. Without foreign private financeit is difficult to see how the requiredinvestments can be made. Unfortunately,the level of foreign private finance hasbeen disappointing, even in projectsinvolving private sector participation.Most finance for investment in water andsewerage services in the cities of low- andmiddle-income countries continues tocome from development loans, equityfinance and the public sector, withcomparatively little investment frominternational corporations.

operation and maintenance functions,both technical and commercial. A leasecontract is similar to the affermagecontract, except that the revenue isdetermined solely by tariffs. Under concession contracts, theprivate contractor manages the wholeutility at its own commercial risk. Build-own-transfer contracts (BOT) are similarto concession contracts with thedifference that the private contractor isresponsible for constructing theinfrastructure from scratch.

The full privatization model has onlybeen adopted in England and Wales, apartfrom a few small and isolated instances.The private company purchases theassets from the government and takesover their operation and maintenance asa business on a permanent basis, butunder strict commercial rules.

A joint venture is an arrangementwhereby a private group forms a companywith the public sector and privateinvestors. There are also multi-utilitycontracts whereby a private companyruns more than one type of utility.

Finally, small-scale providers areimportant because they provide water andsanitation services to a very largeproportion of low-income urbanhouseholds. Without them, provision forwater and sanitation would be muchworse. They often serve populationsliving in areas that are difficult to servewith conventional water distribution anddrainage networks. It is difficult toestimate how many people rely on them,but in many cities and smaller urbancentres in sub-Saharan Africa and in low-income nations in Asia and Latin America,they are certainly far more important thanlarge-scale private water companies.

“For both developed anddeveloping countries the publicsector remains the preferred form ofwater service provision. Only 4 percent of populations in Central &Eastern Europe, 5 per cent in the US,4 per cent in Latin America, 3 per centin Africa and 1 per cent in Asia hasprivatised water provision.”— Eddie Cott le, Against theCurrent! : Water and Privatisation in theSouthern African Region in a briefingpaper at the EU-SADC Civi l SocietyConference in Copenhagen, Denmark

“We must be extremely careful notto impose market forces on waterbecause there are many more decisionsthat go into managing water — thereare environmental decisions, social-culture decisions.”— David Boys of the UK-basedPublic Services International

“If you commodify water and bringin market forces which will control it,and sideline any other concern otherthan profit, you are going to lose theability to control it.”— Tim Concannon, Friendsof the Earth.

Regulation is often seen as a way ofcontrolling a private company to ensureit does not abuse its monopoly position.

The percentage of the world’spopulation currently estimated to beserved by formal private water providersand PPPs is still less than 10 per cent,although there are significant regionaldifferences. In most of Africa, Asia andLatin America, a much higher share ofhouseholds are served by informal orsmall-scale private water providers, andthe share can rise as high as 70-80 percent in some poorly served African cities,such as Bamako (Mali), Conakry,(Guinea), Cotonou (Benin) and Dar esSalaam (Tanzania). Such partnershipsinclude:

Service contracts which are usuallyshort-term agreements whereby a privatecontractor takes responsibility for aspecific task, such as installing meters,repairing pipes or collecting bills.Examples can be found in Mexico Cityand Uganda.

Under a management contract, thegovernment transfers the responsibilityfor the operation and maintenance of thewater or sewerage network to a privatecompany.

An affermage contract is similar to amanagement contract, but the privateoperator takes responsibility for all

The most important aspect forprivate companies and their financialpartners is the potential profit or rate ofreturn. A key consideration is scale.Bankers and multinational watercompanies are looking for large-scaleprojects, with values of US$100 millionupwards, in population centers with atleast 1 million inhabitants. Smaller urbancenters are unlikely to be attractive.

The bidding process for largecontracts typically starts with thegovernment making the decision toprivatise, and then having its team of legal,financial and technical consultantsdevelop the bid documents. Companiesthen submit their bids accordingly. In caseswhere companies find a situation worsethan they had expected, they usually tryto renegotiate relevant terms of thecontract.

One of the justifications for privatesector participation in urban services inlow- and middle-income countries is that

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Habitat Debate September 2003 Forum

Water for Asian Cities - the Indore caseBy André Dzikus and Pieter van Dongen

The north-west Indian city ofIndore has been suggested asthe first city to benefit from

UN-HABITAT’s new Water for AsianCities programme. The main city ofMadhya Pradesh state, Indore has apopulation of 1.6 million with a highannual growth rate of 4.6 percent. Butit is located in a region where wateris scarce.

The problem is such that the city isable to provide its residents withroughly half of the water usuallyprovided in India of 67 litres per capitaper day, as against the norm of 135litres per day. It is exacerbated by thefact that about 32 per cent of itsresidents do not have access to pipedwater, forcing the poorest of all todepend on hand pumps or watervendors for supplies.

The city depends for 80 per cent ofits water on Narmada River, some 70kilometres away. The distributionnetwork is ageing and suffering fromlow maintenance and a lack ofinvestment. Unaccounted-for waterconstitutes 52 per cent of the totalwater production. And those luckyenough to have piped water onlyreceive intermittent supplies of an houror two a day.

This situation has had a directimpact on the city’s sanitationproblems. Only 10 per cent of thepopulation is connected to thesewerage system. For the rest ,sanitation needs are met by septic tanks(42 per cent), and dry pit latrines (1,000units). About 15 per cent of people areforced daily to defecate in the open.Women all too often have to wait thewhole day to sneak out under cover ofdarkness.

The Indore c i ty fa thers havedeveloped a new innovative policyto rectify the situation by institutingwater saving initiatives and city-widerain water harvesting programmes.But it needs capacity building andfollow-up investments – and this iswhere UN-HABITAT’s new Water forAsian Cities collaborative initiativewith the Asian Develepment Bankand Asian governments can help.

In close consultation with the Cityof Indore, the Madhya Pradesh Stategovernment and the centralgovernment of India, an investmentprogramme for Indore has beendeveloped using a participatoryapproach involving all majorstakeholders of the city, includingurban poor communities.

This seeks to maximise the existingwater supply system through waterdemand management measures ,augment supplies to unserved low-income areas, improve seweragecollection, and provide sanitation tounserved areas. It is also intended toimprove munic ipa l so l id was temanagement th rough improvedcollection, and safe treatment anddisposal.

The Indore investments areestimated at US$ 130 million. They willbe part of a larger ADB loan under theIntegrated Urban Development MadhyaPradesh (IUDMP) project. Theinvestment component of theprogramme, which is led by ADB, willbe complemented by a capacitybuilding, awareness and educationcomponent led by UN-HABITAT.Canadian International DevelopmentAgency will also support an initiativeon urban governance.

The Water for As ian Ci t i esprogramme wi l l address thepromotion of pro-poor governanceand institutional development, tacklewate r conserva t ion and demandmanagement, and promote integratedenvironmental sanitation throughdemons t ra t ion of t echnolog ica lop t ions and hygiene awarenesscreation and education. It will alsoaddress income generation for theurban poor through community-basedwater and sanitation services.

The Water for As ian Ci t i esprogramme was first announced atthe World Summit for SustainableDevelopment in Johannesburg, SouthAfr ica l as t year, and off ic ia l lylaunched by Mrs. Anna KajumuloTibaijuka, Executive Director of UN-HABITAT and Mr. Tadao Chino,President of ADB, at the Third WorldWater Forum in Japan in March 2003.

André Dzikus is a Human SettlementsOfficer in the Water, Sanitation andInfrastructure Branch of UN-HABITATand a Programme Manager of theWater for African and Asian Citiesprogrammes.

Pieter van Dongen is a Water ResourcesConsultant.A typical rainwater harvesting cycle. Diagram © UN-HABITAT

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Habitat Debate September 2003Case Studies

By Robert E. Sullivan

A novel private sector initiative for the poor

How does one get cheap, cleanwater into a Philippinecoastal town? Easy, with a

debit card that you carry in yourpocket. It is beginning to work fairlywell, and cheaply, for the poorestpeople , in Ronda , Cebu , thePhi l ipp ines . Accord ing toentrepreneur Quentin Kelly, it may bethe wave of the future for povertystricken rural and urban areas that donot have electric power.

Mr. Kelly sees the system as idealapproach for “s lum upgrad ingprojects in the world’s most derelicturban neighbourhoods.” His NewJersey-based WorldWater i sinstalling a complete water system forthe town of Ronda, from a deep,so la r -powered wel l tha t needsne i ther d iese l fue l nor anyconnection to an electricity grid. Thewater is fed through channellingpipes, to standpipes and taps. Theproject goes well out on a limb fromhis core business of solar-poweredwater pumps.

“First we convinced the mayorand the town council,” he said in aninterview with Habitat Debate, “thenwe went to the local banks.” The aceup the sleeve, he said, was the so-called AquaCard which is pre-paidby water users into an account, from

which money i s au tomat ica l lydeducted as the water is used.

“We told the banks they’d gettheir money instantly,” Mr. Kelly saidhe said. “And we told them thataccord ing to the Wor ld Hea l thOrganization people use about 20litres a day. That’s a lot of business.They were convinced by that.” It took about two years to get thesystem up and running. “And theresult is that the banks are gettingtheir money back, while the people aregetting clean water for about 15 to 20per cent of the price they used topay,” he said. The entire project is runand sponsored locally.

The construction of a completewate r sys tem i s a new advancebeyond Mr. Kel ly’s normal corebusiness of solar pumps - a field theyhave been involved in for more than20 years. WorldWater solar panels andpipe systems are currently pumpingup water for remote populations of theCholistan Desert of Pakistan to thesuburban green houses of Ecuador.They are also pumping water in ruralareas Sri Lanka, Malawi, Tanzania,Mozambique , E th iop ia , Angola ,Somalia and several parts of thePhilippines, as well in huge farms andvineyards in California.

He has been invited to bid forcontracts in several other countries,bu t would pre fe r no t to be toospecific. All his projects in thedeveloping world have two very basicthings in common: solar power bringsthe wate r up wi thout need ofpolluting fuel or connection to theelectricity grid, and the operations arelocally run. Even the pumps arelocally bought as to make for easierrepairs and maintenance. The projectsare 100 percent financed ahead oftime, and the overwhelming majorityof his projects are in conjunction withpartners in the private sector.

As to urban areas, Mr. Kelly saidhe had been examining various partsof the world and was eager to roll uphis sleeves and work in the worst cityconditions.

Referring to slum areas like those,which are close to downtown Rio butwith little or no water, Mr. Kelly said:“What we would do is tap into themain wate r supply. We wouldestablish our own distribution systemand set up standpipes, and then,using solar energy, pump the waterinto the neighbourhoods where theyneed it.”

When Mr. Kelly read that UNSecre ta ry Genera l Kof i Annanrecen t ly l aunched a new UNcommission to get the private sectormore d i rec t ly involved indevelopment, he said, “that’s exactlywhat we do”.

WorldWater started as a researchand development company in 1984specifically aimed at private businessactivity supplying water and powerin developing nations. The companya lso makes so la r poweredrefrigeration units, and even streetlamps, the kind which, he said, “couldbe used in slum upgrading projects”without the need for an electricitygrid.

Rober t E . Su l l i van , an I r i shjournal i s t based in New York ,specialises in the developing worldfor a range o f in terna t ionalpublications and electronic media.

Water gushes from a newly installed solar-powered well pump in Pakistan.Photo © R.E. Sullivan

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Habitat Debate September 2003 Case Studies

The UN-HABITAT Vacutug on field testing in Kibera, Nairobi. Photo © UN-HABITAT.

By Graham Alabaster and Iole Issaias

Removing human waste - the Vacutug solution

While world andcivil societyagonise over how to meett h e M i l l e n n i u m

Development Goal of halving thenumber of poeple without access toadequate water and sanitation by2015, interim solutions have to befound to remove human waste safelyfrom slums that are home to almost 1billion people around the world.

Accord ing to the l a tes t UN-HABITAT statistics, the majority ofthese 1 b i l l ion people l ive indeveloping countries where over 40percent of the urban populations livein slums.

The interim solutions also helpsustain the goals set as improvementsgradually come into place. Moreoverany future investments in sanitationinfrastructure will need to go hand-in-hand with investments in adequatehuman waste removal from either on-site or off-site sanitation systems, ifthese goals are to be truly met andsustained in the years to come.

Thus in 1996, UN-HABITAT inassoc ia t ion wi th Manus CoffeyAssociates, designed a machine toprovide sanitation services for theresidents of densely populated lowincome settlements to remove thehuman was te f rom p i t l a t r ines .Known as the UN-HABITAT Vacutug,it is engineered for access to pitla t r ines in the narrow, unpavedstreets of poverty str icken slumsettlements where larger removalvehicles cannot pass.

Composed of a vacuum tank anda pump assembly with a capacity of500 litres, it is operated by a smallgasoline engine that has the capacityto remove waste at 1,700 liters aminute.

In 1997, the machine was testedon the ou tsk i r t s o f the Kenyancapital, Nairobi, by a local NGO inKibera , the l a rges t in formalsettlement in East Africa, to seewhether or not its design and overallmanagement would be feasible. Thesustainabi l i ty factor of the UN-HABITAT Vacutug was it’s potentialto generate income because it isoperated by a team of five that is able

to remove human waste at a costequivalent to US$ 7 per load.

The pilot phase has shown a hugedemand and willingness to pay forthis service in Kibera. It also meantthat for the community there was noneed to close down pit latrines whenthey became full and thus no need torelocate them, or manually emptythem.

Together wi th good hygienepromotion, the machine can be fullyintegrated into a sanitation system,which would al together be moreef fec t ive in provid ing adequatesanitation. Furthermore it was deemeda success in terms of i ts incomegenera t ing and cos t recoverypotential — it earned about 36 percent profit on total initial cost.

But before any claims can be madeon the v iabi l i ty of the machineprovid ing adequa te removal o fhuman waste in low-income areas,more informat ion on the soc io-cultural and financial sustainabilityfactors will be required.

There a re ce r ta in des ignmodifications which have to be madeto make the machine more durable andefficient under the rough conditionsin which it operates.

Currently there are nine machinesundergoing field trials in Africa, Asia

and La t in Amer ica under aprogramme funded by theDepar tment fo r In te rna t iona lDevelopment (DFID) of the UnitedKingdom and Irish Aid.

The machines will be tested for ayear in various cities in developingcountries, under different conditionsand managerial structures: some willbe tested in informal settlements,rural areas, a refugee camp, and by alocal municipality. UN-HABITAT willshare the results via the Internet. Itis hoped after the trial period anyfinal design changes will be made andthe machine can then be so ldcommercially.

Graham Alabas ter i s a HumanSettlements Officer in the Water,Sani ta t ion and In f ras t ruc tureBranch o f UN-HABITAT and aProgramme Manager of the Water forAfr ican and As ian Ci t i esProgrammes.

Iole Issaias is a consultant withUN-HABITAT’s Water and SanitationBranch who a l so manages thevacutug project.

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Habitat Debate September 2003

A unique community-led initiative in West AfricaBy Malick Gaye

Global water consumption hasincreased so dramaticallyover the last 50 years that it

is now at the top of the agenda ofmany organisations.

The 1994 figures for people in thedeveloping world outside Asia withaccess to household running waterwere 65 per cent for Africa, 89.7 percent for the Middle East and 92 percent for Latin America. In the Sahelregion of Africa, less than half thepopula t ion had access to p ipeddrinking water. Due to the low levelof access to household runningwate r, pub l ic s tandpipes havebecome an important source of watersupply for poor families.

A jo in t s tudy by the Uni tedNations Development Programme(UNDP) and the World Bank showedthat of seven west African capitals -Cotonou, Ouagadougou, Abidjan,Conakry, Bamako, Nouakchott andDakar - Ouagadougou had thehighest rate of water distribution at86 per cent.

This was in spite of a rather lowrate of supply of less than 34 litresper day, per person. Ouagadougou’shigh rating comes from the fact thata considerable portion of its watersupply i s d i s t r ibu ted th rough asystem of public standpipes. Citiessuch as Cotonou or Conakry, wherethe publ ic wate r s tandpipe

d is t r ibu t ion sys tem i s bare lyoperational, have water distributionrates of less than 40 per cent

Poor management of used wateraffects the health of both the localinhabitants and of workers in chargeof used water evacuation. This cannot on ly lead to envi ronmenta ldegradation, but can also contributeto the contaminat ion of mar ineresources.

A study undertaken in 1990 in thebay of Dakar revea led f i sh ingresources were being contaminatedby polluted water. In urban areas, itis quite common to find untreatedwater being used for agriculturalpurposes.

Achieving better management ofused water in developing countrieswould necessitate the use of variouswater treatment systems. For poorercountries, policies involving thepossibility of establishing alternativesanitation systems, alongside theconvent iona l sewage d i sposa lsystems, should be explored.

As part of the Water for AfricanCities programme UN-HABITAT andthe international NGOs ENDA TiersMonde and ONAS are he lp ingSenega l eva lua te a success fu lcommuni ty-based was te wate rcollection, treatment and disposalsystem.

The sys tem, in an in formalsettlement called Rufisque, has beendeveloped by ENDA and comprises alow-cost shal low sewage systemlinked to a decentralised treatmentplant. It is based on a lagoon systemwith floating macrophytes. The system is used to collect thewas te wate r f rom over 500households where wate rconsumption is between 10 and 30litres a day.

Indeed, even if conventional waterpurification plants are necessary oreven indispensable , they cannotadequa te ly sa t i s fy demand. Forexample, the costly Senegalese waterpurification station at Cambrene canhardly cope with one tenth of theused water regurgitated by the capitalcity, Dakar.

The Rufisque system was inspiredby a determination to provide under-privileged population groups withaccess to water purification services.

Al though the demons t ra t ionprojec t a t Ruf isque has been inoperation for some years, and hasbeen internationally acclaimed, thenational sanitation agency asked UN-HABITAT to develop an evaluationapproach in collaboration with theSenegalese government. The idea ofthe study is to ratify the system andproduce national codes of practiceand design manuals , so that thetechnology and the recommendedmodif ica t ions can be rep l ica tednationally without compromisinghealth and the environment. As wellas providing environmentally soundwater t rea tment , i t can prov ideincome generation for local peoplethrough urban agriculture.

Compara t ive epidemiologica ls tud ies have shown tha t thepur i f i ca t ion p lan t s ins ta l l ed inresidential quarters do not favour theproliferation of malaria, as was widelybelieved by the general public. Infact, they show the system has had apositive impact on the health of thelocal population.

Malick Gaye, an architect, is the Co-ordinator of Enda Tiers MondeThe water treatment plant at Rufisque. Photo © Eric Moukoro/UN-HABITAT, Dakar

Best Practices

19

Habitat Debate September 2003

Nicaragua

The local Development Programme (PRODEL) in Nicaraguaprovides small grants for infrastructure andcommunityworks projects, and loans and technical assistance for

microenterprises and housing improvements. The programmealso helps to develop the capacity of local institutions toimplement these measures. Its immediate goal is to improve thephysical and socio-economic conditions of families living in poorcommunities. Between 1994 and 1997, it was active in fivemunicipalities, and from 1998, it became active in three more.

By the end of 1998, more than 38,000 families hadbenefited from the US$ 10.5 million programme – 48 per cent ofthe total population of the eight towns. Just over half of thisfunding was provided by the Swedish InternationalDevelopment Cooperation Agency (SIDA) with the rest beingmobilized locally mostly from the households taking part andthe municipal authorities. Between 1994 and 1998, theinfrastructure and community works component supported 260projects (upto US$ 50,000 per project) in 155 neighborhood witha total investment of US$4.4 million. Among the works fundedwere piped water supplies, sewers and drains, treatment plants,roads and footpaths, electrification and street lighting, healthcenters and day care centers, playgrounds, sporting facilities,and sites for the collection, disposal and treatment of wastes.The communities contributed 132,000 days of work (volunteerand paid).

Water for African Cities

UN-HABITAT’s Water for African Cities Programmeis a collaborative initiative of UN-HABITAT andUNEP within the framework of the UN system-wide

Special Initiative on Africa. The programme is collaborating witha variety of international agencies, NGOs and donors, includingthe Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council and theSwedish International Development Cooperation Agency(SIDA).

A direct follow-up to the Cape Town Declaration of 1997, itwas adopted by African ministers wishing to address the urgentneed for managing water in African cities. The programme startedin October 1999 and is the first regional initiative of its kind tosupport African cities to manage growing water demand andprotect their fresh water resources from the increasing pollutionloads from cities.

During a recent Washington luncheon for Mrs. AnnaTibaijuka, Executive Director of UN-HABITAT, and attended byUS Senators, Congressmen, policy makers and planners, USSenator Timothy E. Wirth, President of the United NationsFoundation, praised the programme as one of the most cost-effective projects funded by the Foundation.

Drawing water in Quito

Quito, the capital of Ecuador is a city of over 1.5 millionlocated in an Andean Valley at about 2, 800 metres abovesea level. The city consumes roughly 7 cubic metres of

water per second. Potable water is provided by a municipal publiccompany. About 80 per cent of Quito’s potable water comesfrom two protected areas.

Water demand is growing, while financing for increasingsupplies is tight. Moreover, even in the protected areas, thereare a number of activities threatening the city’s water supplies.In 2000, the city established a water fund (Fondo del Agua) tofinance the management and conversation of surroundingwatersheds.

Finance is expected to come primarily from fees levied ondomestic, industrial and agricultural users, although some initialseed funds have been provided. Users may form associations tocontribute to the fund.

The main users include the Metropolitan Enterprise of Waterand Sewer systems in Quito which uses 1.5 cubic meters persecond for drinking water and has already agreed to pay 1 percent of sales, worth about $12,000 per month.

Water comes to arid Ananthapur

With a safe drinking water supply close to their doorstep,the people of Ananthapur in India are happier today.But until the completion of the Sathya Sai Water

Supply project in 1996, getting safe drinking water was a dailydrudgery for a million people living in three towns and 730villages in the district of Ananthapur in Andhra Pradesh, thesecond most arid district in India. Also, because of heavy relianceby the people on ground water with excessive fluoride, theincidence of fluorosis was common in the past, often with severebone deformities. After the government failed to find a permanent solution to thewater crisis in Ananthapur for more than five decades, a uniquepublic-private partnership was forged in 1995 to provide safedrinking water to Ananthapur at the initiative of Sri Sathya SaiCentral Trust, a charitable trust established by Sri Sathya SaiBaba. With voluntary contributions from all over the world, the

Fishing in troubled waters in Calcutta: acentury-old innovation of farmers

Farmers around Kolkata (Calcutta), India, developeda technique of using domestic sewage for fish culturealmost a century ago. This technique is widely used to

meet the growing demand for fish in this densely populatedIndian city. The technique is considered to be unique and is thelargest operational system in the world to convert waste intoconsumable products.

Early success of fish culture in stabilized sewage ponds,which were used as a source of water for growing vegetables,provided stimulus for the large-scale expansion of sewage fedfish culture system. The area under this unique system of culturepeaked at 12,000 hectares, but in recent years there has been asteep decline in the area due to the increasing pressure ofurbanization. Today, a considerable amount of fish consumedin Kolkata city is produced from this system.

The wastewater-fed ponds provide employment for about17,000 poor fishermen and produce 20 tonnes of fish daily forurban and periurban markets in Calcutta. Fish is mainly purchasedby less well-off consumers.

Best Practices

trust contributed US$ 69 million and implemented this massiveproject within 18 months, which included laying of 2,500kilometres of pipeline, constructing 268 overhead and 145 groundlevel reservoirs, 40 booster pumping stations, 280 deep boreholesand 13 infiltration wells. After completion, the project was handed over to the stategovernment, which has assumed responsibility for itsmaintenance, operation and management in partnership withgrass roots level democratic institutions (Panchayet Raj). Theproject has clearly demonstrated that in a developing country,the creation of a public service facility need not wait for agovernment initiative if people can be inspired to participateand contribute to the common good.

20

Habitat Debate September 2003Readers’ Forum

Join the debate - your views are important

We welcome readers’ letters to stimulate the debate. These will be published under this Readers’ Forum, atthe discretion of the Editor, who may shorten or edit material to meet space and style requirements. Theremaining issue this year will cover Urban Land Policy and Management. Write to habitat.debate@unhabitat.org,

or to the Information Services Section (Habitat Debate), P.O. Box 30030, GPO, Nairobi, 00100, KENYA, or fax number 254-20-623477.

We would also like to know what you think of the new design and contents of Habitat Debate. Please take a few minutesto complete the form below and send it to the above address. The form is also available on www.unhabitat.org/hd/form.asp.

Name: __________________________________________________________________________________________________Organization: ____________________________________________________________________________________________Address: ________________________________________________________________________________________________E-mail: __________________________________________________________________________________________________

Topics of InterestEnvironmentHousing Rights/Security of TenureRisk & Disaster ManagementRural LinkagesSafer CitiesSlum UpgradingStatisticsTraining/Capacity BuildingUrban PovertyUrban DevelopmentUrban FinanceUrban GovernanceWater and Sanitation

Other − please specify

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In praise of UN-HABITAT’svalue-based water educationproject for African Cities.

Just like in any society, people at our school hardlyrealised the importance of water and the need forits conservation.

Taps were often left running. The school had manyleaking pipes. Pupils and teachers usually ignored suchleakages, assuming they would simply be repaired.Pupils would take unnecessarily long showers. Toiletswere often flushed for no apparent reason.

A similar situation prevailed in many of our homes.In the townships, counci l water pipes of ten hadleakages. Public taps, frequently vandalised, had waterpouring out all the time.

And when VBWE was introduced to our school inOctober 2001, the teachers and we students sighed atthe thought an additional subject on the curriculum. Wewere also suspicious of the idea of values because wethought that this was colonialism.

Yet as the programme was unfolded, our fears quicklyabated. We realised that the values of truth, love, peace,decent conduct and non-violence and their manypractical applications, have always been part of ourculture. We came to enjoy VBWE issues in class.

As a result of this programme, which opened ourminds and eyes and touched upon our hearts, we becamewiser in the use of this valuable resource. So what didwe do?

The whole school, teachers and pupils, took practicalsteps to ensure that the seeds of VBWE took root in us. AWater Task Force (WTF) was formed; running taps wereclosed and these soon became uncommon; open drumswere placed under the taps in order to stop wastage and atthe end of each day, the water collected was used for plantsand flowers; toilets were only opened at specific times,and the unnecessary flushing has been reduced.

In addition to all these practical steps, we also have aWater Room where quotations on and about water aredisplayed. Water billboards posted around the schoolcompound. We now wear water badges and Thursdayshave been set aside as water days when songs, poetry anddrama relating to water are sung, recited and performed.We are very grateful to UN-HABITAT for introducing thisprogramme. It has brought about rapid changes in the waywe look at and use water.

— Isaac Chanda, 17, Head boy of the Sathya SaiSchool in Ndola, Zambia

A word of congratulations

Congratulations on the new format of Habitat Debateand on the quality of the contents of the magazine.I am looking forward to views on the housing

delivery system in a globalizing world.

— Raoul Snelder, Architect, Ooftmengersdreef 3,6216 SJ Maastricht, The Netherlands.

21

Habitat Debate September 2003 Publications

The Challenge of Slums –UN-HABITAT’s Global Report onHuman Settlements 2003HS/686/03EISBN: 1-84407-037-9 paperback 1-84407-036-0 hardbackLanguage: English

Every two years, UN-HABITAT publishes its flagship Global ReportonHuman Settlements. Thisyear’sreport entitled, The Challengeof Slums, is packed with statistics andfigures on our rapidly urbanizingworld – a world in which the totalnumber of people currently living inslums is estimated at 928 million. This figure will grow at anaccelerated rate if no policy action is taken now.

The report, to be launched on World Habitat Day on 6 October2003, carries a series of sharp insights by such personalities as theformer South African Prseeident Nelson Mandela, the Nobel Prizelaureate Amartya Sen and the United Nations Secretary GeneralKofi Annan. In a detailed review, the report addresses growing global concernabout slums, in line with the recently adopted United NationsMillennium Declaration which aims, among other developmentpriorities, to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger and tosignificantly improve the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellersby the year 2020.

“To attain the goal of cities without slums, urban planning andmanagement policies designed to prevent the emergence of slumsshould be implemented vigorously, alongside slum upgrading andwithin the strategic context of poverty reduction,” it says.

The Challenge of Slums presents the first global assessmentof slums, emphasizing their problems and prospects. The report iswritten in clear language and supported by informative graphics,case studies and extensive statistical data.

It also uses a newly formulated operational definition ofslums. it presents estimates of the numbers of urban slumdwellers and examines the factors at all levels, from local to global,which underlie the formation of slums as well as their social,spatial and economic characteristics and dynamics. It goes onto evaluate the principal policy responses to the slum challengeof the last few decades.

Almost 1 billion people live in slums, the majority in thedeveloping world where over 40 per cent of the urban populationare slum dwellers. The number is growing and will continue tobincrease unless there is serious and concerted action by municipalauthorities, governments and civil society and the internationalcommunity.

The report shows the way forward and identifies the mostpromising approaches to achieving the United Nations MillenniumDevelopment Goals for improving the lives of slum dwellers byscaling up participatory slum upgrading and poverty reductionprogrammes.

This global report is an essential tool and reference work forresearchers, academics, planners, public authorities and civilsociety organisations around the world.

NEW PUBLICATIONSWater and Sanitation in the World’sCities: Local Action for Global GoalsEarthscan, London, 2003HS/682/03EISBN: 1-84407-004-2 paperback 1-84407-003-4 hardbackLanguages: English, Spanish

The report describes awater and sanitationsituation in major cities of

the developing world much worsethan anyone had imagined. It is aproblem compounded in part byskewed statistics.

The report warns that it will notbe possible to meet the UNMillennium Goal of halving the number of people withoutadequate water and sanitation by the year 2020 without amajor review of urban sanitation. Current official nationalstatistics often disguise the real problem of the poor in citiesand towns because most surveys assume that the urban poorare better served than the rural poor with “improved”provision of water and sanitation.

Packed with statistics, it examines in detail problem areasin Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, and ispacked with personal accounts of distress from poor urbanareas around the world and many case studies. It also makesuseful suggestions for ways of resolving a problem that isgrowing daily. A Spanish edition of the report will be launchedduring the celebrations to mark World Habitat Day in Rio deJaneiro on 6 October 2003.

Water for People, Water for Life, 2003ISBN UNESCO: 92-3-103881-8ISBN Berghahn:1-57181-627-5 (cloth)1-57181-628-3 (paperback)Language: English

A new report by UNESCO,World Water DevelopmentReport - Water for people,

Water for Life shows howpeace and harmony between andwithin nations are threatened where,for whatever reason, there isinsufficient water to meet human andenvironmental needs. And it shows how the value of fresh waterexceeds narrow economic calculations by encompassing a wholerange of social, cultural and ethical considerations.

The report runs into over 500 pages looking at the world’sfresh water resources.

This body of work is the main outcome of the World WaterAssessment Programme, a long-term project started in responseto decisions of the United Nations General Assembly and theCommission on Sustainable Development.

It is published in 2003 jointly by United Nations Educational,Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) and BerghahnBooks.

22

Habitat Debate September 2003Events

RECENT EVENTSTibaijuka decries death of Vieira de Mello

The bombing in August 2003 of theUnited Nations headquarters inBaghdad which resulted in the

death of UN Special Representative toIraq Sergio Vieira de Mello, and nearly ascore of other UN staff was condemnedas a “senseless” act by Anna Tibaijuka,UN-HABITAT’s Executive Director.

more than 600 schools, over 100 healthcentres, more than 500 kilometres of waterand sewage systems, nearly 3,000kilometres of new roads. Managing aUS$600 million budget, UN-HABITAThas conducted the reconstructionprojects under the former Oil-for-Foodprogramme.

Today, with its well establishedoperational network, the organizationis providing an immediate operationalresponse to the post-war emergencysituation and building foundationsfor the longer term needs of thepeople. UN-HABITAT’s offices inBaghdad a re s i tua ted about 10kilometres away from the main UNheadquarters where Mr. Vieira deMello was killed.

Major initiative to improve the slums of Kenya

Kenya’s Minister for Roads,Public Works and Housing,Mr. Raila Odinga, last month

announced the Kenya Slum UpgradingProject, a major initiative aimed atimproving the conditions of the slumdwellers in Nairobi, who makeup over 60 per cent of the city’spopulation.

He said the goal of theprogramme is to improve thelives of hundreds of thousandsslum dwellers in Nairobi andother urban areas in Kenya.

Mr. Odinga the priorities ofthe programme, which aims toimprove the living and workingconditions in slums, these includeensuring security of tenure,improving physical infrastructuresuch as access roads, watersupply, sanitation facilities, andproviding basic health facilities,schools and other socialinfrastructural services.

Sergio Vieira de Mello. Photo © UN-DPI

The programme will cover the urbanareas of Kenya, starting with selectedslums in Nairobi, the capital city, andKisumu City, located in western Kenya.Mr. Odinga stressed that, in commonwith other best practices from around

the world, tenants and landlords wouldbe consulted and fully involved in theplanning and execution phases of theslum upgrading project to ensure thattheir needs and concerns areaddressed.

In fact, consultative meetingswith slum dwellers havealready started. In response toquestions on whether slumresidents would be forced tomove from their lodgings whileimprovements were underway,Mr. Odinga insisted that therewould be no forced evictions.He confirmed that land at sitesnear the slum areas had beenidentified where someresidents could be moved tocreate space for improvements.However, the displacement ofpeople would be minimized andtake place only after consultingand reaching agreement at thecommunity level.

Mr. Raila Odinga with Mrs. Anna Kajumulo Tibaijuka.Photo © Nathan Kihara/UN-HABITAT

“This senseless act of violence mustbe condemned not only for the death anddestruction it has brought about but alsobecause of the damage it does to thehopes and aspirations of the Iraqi peoplethemselves,” said Mrs. Tibaijuka.

Recalling that her colleague hadserved in some of the most dangerousplaces in Africa, Kosovo, and East Timorhelping bring peace against all the odds,she added: “ In losing Mr. Vieira de Mello,the Iraqi people have lost a friend and theworld has lost a champion of justice andfreedom. The only way we can pay tributeto the man, is to continue the UN missionto establish peace and prosperity in Iraq.”

With a large team of international staff,every day since 1997, UN-HABITAT hashelped provide over 20,000 new homes,

Nairobi gets new youth centre

Nairobi City Council and UN-HABITAT haveopened a new youth centre in the Kenyan capitalNairobi to help young people hone the skills and

extra training needed to find jobs.The One Stop Youth Information Resource

Centre in a building newly refurbished with funding from

the government of The Netherlands was launched on 12August 2003 as part of the International Youth Daycelebrations. Its training workshops and computerisedfacilities also has the backing of a wide cross-section ofprivate businesses and NGOs.

23

Habitat Debate September 2003 Events

Sustainable CitiesProgramme,Local Agenda 21Global Meeting 2003Alexandria, Egypt.29 September – 2 October 2003Theme: Environmentally sustainableurbanization through planning andmanagement capacities aimed at povertyreduction in Alexandria.

World Habitat Day 2003Rio de Janeiro, Brazil6 October 2003Theme: Water and Sanitation for Cities

Governments, community organiz-ations and individuals aroundthe world will celebrate World

Habitat Day this year on Monday, 6October in a wide range of events atnational and community levels focusingon this year’s theme of Water andSanitation for Cities. The theme waschosen because the world’s urban waterand sanitation crisis is far worse thanofficial statistics suggest. The globalobservance will be held in the Braziliancity of Rio de Janeiro.

According to a new report byUN-HABITAT, Water and Sanitation inthe World’s Cities, in Africa alone, forexample, there are as many as 150 millionurban residents – up to 50 per cent of thecontinent’s urban population – who lackadequate water supplies. Even morepeople, an estimated 180 million, lackadequate sanitation.

The idea behind the annual WorldHabitat Day is to remind governments,municipalities and the public at large aboutthe urgency of striving to improve humansettlements and especially those of theurban poor who live without clean water,proper sanitation and basic services. Among the highlights of the globalobservances of World Habitat Day in Riode Janeiro will be the Habitat Scroll ofHonor, an international award foroutstanding contributions towards urbangovernance by individuals, organizationsand projects. The Building and SocialHousing Foundation, a non-governmentalorganization based in the United Kingdom,will also present the World Habitat Awardsin recognition of innovative, sustainableand replicable human settlements projectsthroughout the world.

FUTURE EVENTS

International Federationfor Housing and Planning(IFHP), 47th WorldCongressVienna, Austria5-8 October 2003Theme: Cities and Markets, Shifts inUrban Development

International Conferenceon SustainableUrbanization StrategiesWeihai City, Shandong Province, China3 - 5 November 2003

As an important event inpreparation for the Second WorldUrban Forum, this conference willaddress major urbanization issuesincluding planning and regionaleconomic development, slum upgrading,poverty reduction, water and sanitation.

Best practices, good policies andlessons will be shared and newpartnerships developed for furthercooperation between local and nationalgovernments and their international andcivil society partners.

Africities SummitYaounde, Cameroon2-6 December 2003

Bringing together up to 2,000experts from Africa and otherregions of the world, the

Africities Summit is scheduled to gatherministers of local government andfinance, mayors, central and localgovernment officials, electedrepresentatives, academics andresearchers who will discuss how localgovernments in Africa can ensure accessto basic services. UN-HABITATExecutive Director Anna Tibjaijuka hasbeen invited to deliver a keynote address.

World Summit of Citiesand Local Authorities onthe Information SocietyLyon, France4-5 December 2003

The meeting will focus on the roleof local authorities in exploitinginformation and communication

technologies for the future of our societies,especially in education, culture, democraticparticipation, and economic development.It is linked to the World Summit onInformation Society (WSIS) which takesplace five days later in Geneva.

Commission onSustainable Development,12th SessionNew York, U.S.A.16-30 April 2004

At the beginning of its first two-year cycle (2004-2005), theCommission on Sustainable

Development ( CSD) will focus on water,sanitation and human settlements. As withevery cycle in the new programme of work,CSD-12 will tackle this agenda using anumber of cross-cutting issues.For Further information see:www.un.org/esa/sustdev/csd/csd12/csd12.htm

Second World UrbanForumBarcelona, Spain

13-17 September 2004Theme: Cities : crossroads of culture,inclusiveness and integration.

Poster © Amrik Kalsi/UN-HABITAT

24

Habitat Debate September 2003

UN-HABITAT OFFICESHEADQUARTERS

UN-HABITATP.O. Box 30030, GPO,Nairobi, 00100, KenyaTel: (254-020) 621234Fax: (254-020) 624266/624267/624264/623477/624060E-mail: infohabitat@unhabitat.orgWeb-site:http://www.unhabitat.org/

REGIONAL OFFICESAfrica and the Arab States

UN-HABITAT Regional Office forAfrica and the Arab StatesP.O. Box 30030, GPO,Nairobi, 00100, KenyaTel: (254-020) 621234/623221Facsimile: (254-020) 623904/623328(Regional Office)624266/7 (Central Office)E-mail: roaas@unhabitat.orgWeb-site:http://www.unhabitat.org/roaas/

Asia and the PacificUN-HABITAT Regional Office forAsia and the Pacific

ACROS Fukuoka Building, 8th Floor1-1-1 Tenjin, Chuo-kuFukuoka 810-0001, JapanTel: (81-92) 724-7121Fax: (81-92) 724-7124E-mail:habitat.fukuoka@unhabitat.orgWeb-site:http://www.fukuoka.unhabitat.org

Latin America and theCaribbean

UN-HABITAT Regional Office forLatin America and the Caribbean(ROLAC)/Oficina Regional paraAmerica Latina y el Caribe (ROLAC)

Av. Presidente Vargas, 3131/130420210-030 - Rio de Janeiro RJ,BrazilTel: (55-21) 2515-1700Fax: (55-21) 2515-1701E-mail: rolac@habitat-lac.orgWeb-site: http://www.habitat-lac.org

LIAISON OFFICESNew York Office

UN-HABITAT New York OfficeTwo United Nations PlazaRoom DC2-0943New York, N.Y. 10017, U.S.A.Tel: (1-212) 963-8725/963-4200Fax: (1-212) 963-8721E-mail: habitatny@un.org

Geneva OfficeUN-HABITAT Geneva OfficeONU-HABITAT Bureau de GenèveInternational Environment HouseMaison Internationale del’Environnement (C-511)11-13 chemin des AnémonesCH-1219 ChâtelainePostal address: Palais des NationsAv. de la Paix 8-14CH 1211 Genève 10, SwitzerlandTel: (41-0) 22 917-86 46/7/8Fax: (41-0) 22 917-8046E-mail: habitatgva@unog.chWebsite: http://www.unhabitat.org

European Union OfficeUN-HABITAT Liaison Officewith the European Union andBelgium14 rue MontoyerB-1000 Brussels, BelgiumTel: (32-2) 503-35-72 (32-2) 503-1004Fax: (32-2) 503-46-24E-mail: unhabitat@skynet.be orunhabitat.admin@skynet.beWeb-site: www.unhabitat.org

INFORMATION OFFICES

Central EuropeUN-HABITAT Information Centrefor Central EuropeH-1124 BudapestNémetvölgyi út 41. 2. ep. 1.1.,HungaryTel/Fax: (36-1) 202-2490E-mail:horcher@unhabitat.datanet.hu

IndiaUnited Nations Human SettlementsProgramme - UN-HABITAT5th Floor (East Wing)Thalamuthu Natarajan Building(CMDA Building)Egmore, Chennai 600 008, IndiaTel: (91-44) 2853-0802/91-44-2855-5834Fax: (91-44) 2857-2673E-mail: unchssp@md2.vsnl.net.in

ChinaUN-HABITAT Beijing InformationOfficeNo. 9 Sanlihe RoadBeijing 100835People’s Republic of ChinaTel: (86-10) 6839-4750, 68350647Fax: (86-10) 6839-4749E-mail:unchspek@public.bta.net.cnWeb-site:http://www.cin.gov.cn/habitat

Russian FederationUN-HABITAT Executive Bureau inMoscow

8, Stroiteley Street, Building 2, Office 809

Moscow, 119991Russian FederationTel: (7-095) 930-6264Fax: (7-095) 930-0379E-mail: unhabitat@gosstroy.gov.ru

URL: www.unhabitatmoscow.ru