A group of children stood along a nullah in Machhar Colony, the city’s largest slum settlement, trying to connect a pipe to a suction pump so that they could supply water to their home.
Nearby, a heap of burnt garbage was obstructing the flow of the nullah due to which sewage water was entering the pipe carrying drinking water for the slum dwellers.
This scene is enough to explain why 32,000 children below the age of five die every year in Karachi.
According to the official data of different international institutions working on child health, water and sanitation, at least 4,000 children die every day throughout the world as a result of diseases caused by unclean water and poor sanitation. Slums like Machhar Colony make a major contribution to these deaths.
On Monday, when nations around the world celebrated the United Nations (UN) World Habitat Day to highlight the importance of the state of our towns and cities and the basic right to adequate shelter, 42 percent of the total population living in 539 slum settlements in the city were struggling to get basic rights including clean water.
International charity organisation, WaterAid, issued a new report to highlight the importance of the day and requested nations to invest in water and sanitation in the rapidly urbanising cities of the developing world as this is the key if we are to avoid uncontrollable poverty and ever-worsening slums.
“We are seeing an explosion of poverty in the cities of the developing world. If we continue the way, we are the gross inequality between rich and poor could be almost impossible to reverse. But there is an opportunity to turn things around if we act now,” said Timeyin Uwejamomere of WaterAid in a statement issued on Monday.
“Water and sanitation have proved time and time again to be a critical factor in health and economic development. We only need to look at the development of the ‘Asian Tigers’ to see that long-term, reliable funding into urban water and sanitation infrastructure has a powerful impact on economic productivity, as well as driving down poverty.”
Cities in the developing world are expected to double in population size every 15 years, and two thirds of the world’s population will live in urban areas by 2030. The vast majority of these people will end up living in unplanned slums, with little or no access to fundamental services such as water, sanitation and electricity.
Water and sanitation are fundamental to health and development, especially in densely packed urban areas, where outbreaks of diseases such as cholera can quickly turn into epidemics. At present the diarrhoeal diseases caused by a lack of safe water and sanitation are the biggest killers of children under five in Africa, more than HIV/AIDS, malaria and measles combined. In South Asia it is the second biggest killer.
Current investment into water and sanitation in the slums is inadequate and is failing to reach the poorest and most vulnerable people. Only six percent of World Bank sanitation-related commitments from 2000-2005 went to slums, with the vast majority going to more established urban areas. The manifesto advises that to tackle urban poverty, the very poorest people need to be at the heart of water and sanitation investments and planning. They should also be encouraged to participate in the design and implementation of these plans.
WaterAid’s call for action comes with practical measures and guidelines in a new report, Sanitation and water for poor urban communities: A manifesto released to coincide with a World Habitat Day meeting in Mexico to discuss urbanisation.
The manifesto lays down a blueprint of how to turn the situation of urban poverty around and showcases examples of good on-the-ground work in a document aimed to advise the international community and national governments. It calls on strong leadership from international donors to take on the cause of championing the urban poor and direct a 15-year plan..
