5.2 Future needs and services

There are four major challenges facing the water supply and sanitation sector in the years to come:

· Keeping pace with a net population growth of more than a billion people over the next 15 years (Box 5.3; 17).

· Closing the coverage and service gap, with emphasis on sanitation which lags considerably behind water supply.

· Ensuring sustainability of existing and new services.

· Improving the quality of services.

The magnitude of these challenges can be seen clearly in the context of the international development targets described in Box 1.1. Whether or not these targets are realistic, they are helpful in quantifying the challenges faced by the sector in reducing the coverage gap.

Table 5.1 shows the practical implications of adopting the VISION 21 target of halving the fraction of the global population without improved sanitation and water supply by 2015 (1). To allow a more detailed regional analysis of needs over the next 15 years, the VISION 21 target has been applied to regional rural and urban populations. However, this report does not imply that all regions and countries of the world should have the same target. The table has been subdivided into urban, rural and total components, each of which is further subdivided between water supply and sanitation. In Table 5.1, 2015 target water and sanitation coverages for urban, rural and total populations were obtained by halving the fraction of the population without access to improved water or sanitation, as appropriate, for each region. The “additional population to serve” figures were obtained from the corresponding differences between the target population to have access and the current 2000 population with access, for each region. This figure represents the additional population that must be served if the fraction of urban population without improved services in the region is to be halved by 2015. The assumption is that services for those who are already served will be sustained. This is optimistic, as there are still huge constraints affecting the sustainability of water supply and sanitation services, including funding limitations, insufficient cost-recovery and inadequate operation and maintenance (Section 3.1). This suggests that, in addition to the great demand for constructing new systems, there will also be a need for substantive investments in capacity building, and operation and maintenance.

Some of the conclusions that can be drawn from Tables 5.1 and 5.2 are striking:

· To meet the 2015 development target of halving the fraction of the population without services in Africa, Asia, and Latin America and the Caribbean, the number of people served by water supply must increase by 1.6 billion (32%), and those served by sanitation must increase by 2.2 billion (59%).

· For water, this means providing services for an additional 107 million people each year, or 292 000 every day, until 2015. Considering that only 816 million people gained access to improved water services during the 1990s, the pace has to be accelerated over the next 15 years.

· For sanitation, the challenge is even greater, with services to be provided for an additional 145 million people each year until 2015, or 397 000 every day until 2015. During the 1990s, only 75 million people a year gained access to improved sanitation services.

· Rapid urban growth means that more than half of the additional services must be in urban areas, despite the higher current levels of coverage. The lower levels of service in rural areas also mean that nearly half of the improvements will need to come in rural areas, even though the rural population will grow more slowly than the urban population.

· Most of the work will be in Asia. The absolute needs in Asia outstrip those of Africa, and Latin America and the Caribbean combined. This does not mean that the needs of the poor are any more acute in Asia than elsewhere, only that the majority of people without access to water supply and sanitation services are in Asia.

· Current progress is inadequate to meet the targets. Something will have to change dramatically if the targets are to be met. In reality, as highlighted at the World Water Forum in The Hague (1), a wide range of issues would need to be resolved, and the majority of these are institutional and social, rather than technical.

The estimated population growth in the next 15 years is 1.1 billion people, 88% of whom will live in urban areas. After 2015, all the population expansion will be concentrated in cities. If global expenditure and approaches in water supply remain the same as during the past decade, by 2015 water supply services will be provided to an additional 739 million urban dwellers and 489 million rural inhabitants. Considering that the current urban and rural populations without improved water service are 173 million and 926 million, respectively, and that by 2015 the urban and rural populations will grow by 972 million and 127 million, respectively, it is obvious that the past pace of providing improved services will be insufficient to cope with the projected population growth. Unless the pace is increased, the number of people without access will increase sharply. To achieve the 2015 target, the annual investment in water supply should be increased by 31% (39% for the urban water sector and 19% for the rural water sector).

In sanitation, the numbers are even more dramatic as the current coverage level is low. In urban areas, 1.085 billion additional people should be provided with sanitation service, requiring a 28% increase in effective annual expenditure. In rural areas, the global target is to provide an additional 1.1 billion people with sanitation service, implying a quadrupling of the annual progress achieved over the 1990s. To achieve the total sanitation target by 2015 would require that the annual expenditures of the 1990s almost double.

TABLE 5.1 POPULATION COVERAGE REQUIRED BY THE 2015 INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT TARGET

Table 5.2 shows the urban-rural distribution of the additional population for which services must be provided to meet the 2015 international development target.

TABLE 5.2 DISTRIBUTION OF ADDITIONAL POPULATIONS TO BE SERVED TO MEET THE 2015 INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT TARGET