Cost effective ways to provide clean water water and sanitation for Ethiopia - Research Proposal Example

Providing Clean Water and Sanitation for Ethiopia Table of contents Contents Introduction The global efforts geared towards meeting the Millennium Development Goals constitute a particulate necessity and interest to people without access to water. The progress so far in meeting the international timeline of the goals is remarkably notable. However, the uncovered ground is huge, raising issues on the efficacy of the measures in place to ensure achievement of the goal to provide clean, affordable water and sanitation services. The water and sanitation coverage remain a leading factor in crisis, in the developing countries. Therefore, this report focuses on evaluating the water and sanitation crisis in Ethiopia, Africa and provides cost effective solutions to the problem. It is a requirement of the human rights law that every person should and must have access to clean water and sanitation services. Several international policies are in place to enforce this expectation. However, the developing countries, including Ethiopia fail to meet the threshold in facilitating this essential right to the citizens. Executive summary Worldwide today, the statistics are surprisingly high, with over one billion of the humans lacking access to an adequate supply of water, which is twice more than those lacking basic sanitation. Surveys indicate that, unsafe water, insufficient hygiene and inadequate sanitation services account for about 9.1 percent of the worldwide batch of diseases and about 6.3 percent of all deaths. Additionally, children in the developing countries bear a good proportion of this burden and crisis, with water related factors causing over 20 percent of deaths of the people fewer than 14 years of age. Ethiopia has a populace of about 85 million citizens as the last census indicates (Legesse & Kloos, 2010). The capital of the state is Addis Ababa, with several other towns and villages. Like many other developing nations in Africa, the country suffers from deficient infrastructure. Thus, the needs for water and sanitation are severe in this country. It is surprising that, in this country, with such a high population, only 34 percent of this population has access to quality and sufficient water supply. In addition, only 21 percent of this population has access to adequate and affordable sanitation services (Legesse & Kloos, 2010). Factual figures indicate that, about 56 million in Ethiopia lack the basic need of access to safe water for consumption. Moreover, a whooping 67 million habitants of Ethiopia do not have adequate and improved sanitation services (Legesse & Kloos, 2010). This evidence collaborate the observation that, the infant mortality rate in the country is over 6 percent. The poverty in the country severe the crisis in this nation, with over about 30 percent of this population living in dire poverty stricken conditions. In the rural Ethiopia, the women and children habiting such areas walk distance amounting up to six hours just to get access to water (Andrews, 2012). Additionally, despite walking all these vast distances to fetch water, they have to content to collecting the water from shallow and unprotected ponds and lakes which they share with animals, both domestic and wild. To those people that are lucky, they fetch their water from shallow wells, which are also prone to contamination from waste and disease causing microorganisms. The women in Ethiopia carry jugs pots and jerry cans hat weigh up to 40 pounds for fetching water, with the young children remaining home while the elder siblings go to fetch water with their mothers. Within the last 20 years, Ethiopia continues to experience recurring droughts, which come accompanied by food shortages and famine. It is during these periods of drought that water-related infections become rampant. Additionally, the droughts cause the available springs, swamps, rivers and some wells to dry, leading to further crisis of acute water shortage in the country. When it rains, the condition exacerbates as the available water sources get contamination from the washing of waste into the water sources by the rains. Moreover, stagnant water, shared by both animals and people, is a breeding ground for many water borne diseases, as well as mosquitoes causing malaria (Legesse & Kloos, 2010). The lack of water in these periods of drought causes people to miss bathing, leading to the populations, especially the children suffering from scabies and eye infections, among many other related infections. Moreover, due to the inadequate water services, the people do not observe proper sanitation practices such as washing and disinfecting hands before eating, among others. This contributes to the diarrhea and water related infections, which are a principle cause of deaths in young children within the country. Ethiopian countryside has a lot of beauty and culture. However, the severe water shortages also affect the people as well as their practices and culture significantly. For instance, inadequate water services lead to fields drying, farmers missing irrigation water and animals lacking water for drinking. This creates struggles among the people, which results in fighting for the scarce resource, increasing both political and social conflicts in the country (Legesse & Kloos, 2010). These fights are severe as they result to loss of homes, parents, children and many other lives. The children who miss school, as they have to help their mothers in such f water miss education. Thus, in view of all these challenges and consequences brought on the people of Ethiopia by the absence of water and sanitation services, t is only fair to focus on establishing cost-effective and lasting solutions to the water crisis in the country. The water shortage alleviation programs and plans need to focus on establishing and effecting quality procedures and interventions to the water and sanitation challenges in the country (Healey, 2011). Researched solutions To alleviate the water crisis in Ethiopia, the country and the responsible organizations for water and sanitation should initiate the following two significant approaches. The first approach is what I will describe as the non-technological approaches while the second is the technological approaches. The world of today runs on knowledge; thus, technology is a leading and effective means of facilitating solutions to many of the world problems and crisis today. The non-technological solutions to the water and sanitation crisis include the following measures and practices. The country and organizations responsible need to realize that, knowledge is the key to having a successful campaign, especially in a third world country. Thus, the first initiative to take is to organize ad conduct massive education to the community on the sources of water. The education programs should feature on enlightening the people of Ethiopia on the significance of protecting the available water catchment areas. The origin of the water crisis in the country is the declining deficiency in the rain within the country, and increased drought. The leading cause of the drought conditions is deforestation, a practice that is rampant within this country. Thus, these education programs will focus on educating people on the need to protect the forests, and implementing programs for managing the available forests, such as reforestation, conservation and management of the remaining forests Educating the people of Ethiopia on the practice of maintain sanitation is also a key factor in the fight towards facilitating adequate sanitation conditions to the communities. It may not be effective if the organizations and parties responsible bring the sanitation facilities and do not educate people on their usage and maintenance. Thus, to ensure that the plans and strategies meet the expected goal, education of the multitudes on the necessity, maintenance and usage of these sanitation practices will aid significantly in solving the crisis. Such sanitation facilities include safe waste disposal mechanisms and latrines (Andrews, 2012). Additionally, the community needs emancipation on the fact that water is a life source and thus, they need to conserve and protect the available water sources accordingly. The community needs to learn means of conserving and guarding the available water sources, such as the wells and natural sources from contamination. Thus, with these education programs for the various stakeholders in the country, the water crisis will be on a significant milestone towards ending. In addition to the education on the water catchment systems, initiation of protective mechanisms to the catchment systems and education on clean water and sanitation, other non-technological measures to curb the crisis include establishing latrines and washing stations within the school systems to help the children. Moreover, finance is a significant factor in the progress towards sanitation and adequate water facilities. Thus, the concerned sources of finance, that is the government and international donors need to focus on funding programs and initiatives for solving the water crisis in the country. Corruption continues to affect the country, thus, fighting against corruption and political intrusions into the water crisis will boost the campaign towards facilitating effective solutions to the water and sanitation crisis. The technological and technical solutions to the water crisis include the use of drilling technology to establish boreholes and wells across the country. Drilling wells and boreholes, and installing them with hand pumping systems to ease the fetching of the water will aid significantly in the progress towards solving the inadequate water problem. Additionally, with technical use of pipes, the programs should focus on facilitating piping of water to the communities, homes and schools among other places, where people can have access to clean, and sufficient water for their consumption. Moreover, with technology today, there are various systems of filtering and purifying water. The implementation of this technology, most of which requires easily accessible resources such as UV-light, will aid notably towards solving the water problems in the country. The reason why most people suffer from the unclean and contaminated water is that they do not purify the water. Thus, after availing the water to the people through these technological means, implementing the water purification systems will boost the campaign towards facilitating the communities in Ethiopia with clean, sufficient water for their use. This way, they will also increase their sanitation conditions as they will have access to adequate clean water for their consumption. The setting of water treatment plants and technology will solve the problems of adequate water supply, furthermore, the technology allows for the construction of water storage facilities. The initiatives; thus should employ technology to develop water storage facilities such as dams and water tanks among others within the local and rural areas to store and facilitate access to clean and adequate water to the communities of Ethiopia during the dry seasons. With proper knowledge on the maintenance of the technology from the water engineers in the country, and educating the local people on such means of maintaining the water pumps and other systems, the community will never suffer the water and sanitation crisis. Additionally, the government will make a major milestone towards achieving the Millennium Development Goal on water and sanitation. Advantages of the solutions The concerns of facilitating clean and sufficient water and sanitation to the people of Ethiopia receive a boost from the observable benefits, which it brings to the people. Thus, for instance, once people get to know the essence of having these interventions in place, they will significantly and readily adopt and support initiatives. Thus, from this observation, the first advantage of the suggested solutions is that they are easy to understand, and they will receive a ready acceptance and support from the local people. Secondly, the initiatives are easy and relatively cheap to implement; thus, the stakeholders will easily facilitate their implementation. Moreover, after their implementation, these intervention plans are long lasting; thus, they will solve the water and sanitation crisis in both the present and future. Thus, they are advantageous to accept and implement. Limitations to the solutions The interventions will face limitation, considering that most of them rely on knowledge, yet a larger population of the Ethiopian people is illiterate (Legesse & Kloos, 2010). Thus, this high level of illiteracy will set back the plans to some extent. Another limitation is the source of funding as the country also suffers from corruption among other financial challenges. Thus, donors and well-wishers may not be willing to support the intervention programs. Nonetheless, these limitations do not overshadow the foreseeable benefits of the intervention solutions to the water and sanitation crisis in the country and to the communities. Recommendation Thus, in view of these available solutions to the crisis, I recommend the following observations for the action plan. The first is that, the government of Ethiopia and the concerned stakeholders should take interest in the issue and move the water and sanitation crisis discussion to the top of their agenda. Secondly, the country should ensure that it adopts and enforces the implementation of the international policies for water and sanitation services and water resources development and management. Additionally, the stakeholders and government of Ethiopia should pursue reforms and investments into the services of improved water supply and sanitation management in the country. Additionally, the implementation plan and stakeholders should empower the local authorities and communities into a capacity that they require to manage the water supply and sanitation services (Andrews, 2012). The institutions of the country should also facilitate financial and technological innovations in strategic areas, to guarantee successful execution of the action plan for solving the water and sanitation crisis in Ethiopia. Implementation To implement solutions to water and sanitation crisis suggested, there are several factors and pillars involved. The first is the government of Ethiopia, which bears the larger mandate to serve its people. They should adopt the action plan, discuss it and pass it, then designate the responsible ministry to act. Additionally, it also has the responsibility of financing the intervention plan and overseeing its implementation. Secondly, the education sector needs to emancipate the people of Ethiopia on the need for solutions and the implication of their suggestions. Additionally, the health sector is also responsible as sanitation is key in its operations. Another party involved is the international community, led by the United Nations along with the World Health Organization, as well as, the donors and charity organizations in providing sustenance to the realization of the plan. The cost of the solutions varies depending on the area of coverage and the technical factors involved. Nonetheless, it is an affordable action plan that the stakeholders should adopt and implement to facilitate clean and adequate water and sanitation supply to the people of Ethiopia. Conclusion The Millennium Development Goals intent to improve the lives of people and the health sector is a pillar in those goals (Healey, 2011). Thus, clean, safe and adequate water and sanitation services are essential for any country, developed or developing to achieve its target in growth. Therefore, this necessitates the realization of the resolutions to the water and sanitation predicament in Ethiopia. The beauty, culture and prosperity of the country rely on the wellbeing of the citizens. References Andrews, Lindsey. (2012). I Walk for Water. Hilarity Waters Pr. Healey, T. (2011). NATIONAL SECURITY IN THE MILLENIUM: ISSUE SPOTLIGHT: ISSUE FOCUS: The Global Water Crisis Is Too Big To Ignore. The Georgetown Public Policy Review Legesse, W., & Kloos, H. (2010). Water Resources Management in Ethiopia: Implications for the Nile Basin. Amherst, NY: Cambria Press. Read More