Emerging Markets: Safe clean water in rural areas

  First and foremost I consider South Africa one of the most robust, beautiful and great countries in the world.  Additionally, it's an emerging market with many diverse people full of ambition, culture, talents and constructive power.  That said, the comments in this blog are an attempt to bring additional attention regarding  "How Can" rural communities, stakeholders and local rural governments coordinate clean water  and sustainability resources. 
      A broken water hand pump in rural South African communities is another constant reminder of a community’s inability to escape poverty. The International Institute for Environment and Development 2009 suggests that a “catastrophe” is spreading across Africa regarding human capital and water management resources.   Considerable investments are made to improve rural water supplies and access. For example, between 1978 and 2003 the World Bank alone lent approximately US$ 1.5 billion to the sector (WHO/UNICEF 2008).  An estimated 45,000 rural water points are broken and over $200 million US dollars of investment wasted because of poor management, inadequate sustainability plans, unrealistic community involvement and careless implementation (WHO/UNICEF 2008).

       South Africa is one of the few countries in the world that highlights the basic right to water access in its Constitution, stating, "Everyone has the right to have access to sufficient food and water".  After the end of Apartheid in 1994, South Africa's newly elected government inherited huge service backlogs and constraints regarding access to clean water supply.  An estimated 15 million people were without safe clean water.  As a newly found government, it became imperative for South Africa to provide service to a populace who never had this kind of attention before.  In his State of the Union address to Parliament in May 2004 President Thabo Mbeki promised, "All households will have running water within five years".  Despite substantial progress, this goal is not finished.  

        The data is equally troubling around the rural African continent, from Mali, where 80 percent of the water points are “dysfunctional”, and surveys from northern Ghana indicating that 58 percent of existing water points need repair (International Institute for Environment and Development 2009). The International Water and Sanitation Center proclaims “In the last 20 years, 600,000-800,000 hand pumps have been installed in sub-Saharan Africa, of which some 30 percent are known to fail prematurely, representing a total failed investment of between $1.2 and $1.5 billion” (International Water and Sanitation Centre 2009).

         There are several reasons for high failure rate of water pumps: inappropriate technology; poor construction; lack of rural community involvement and subsequent sense of ownership; poor community organization or cohesion; lack of follow-up support and/or training; the unavailability or high cost of spare parts, energy, and professional support services; and the drying-up of source water. Many researchers have attributed the failure rate to technological reasons. However, social issues, community roles and institutional factors play equally important roles in determining long-term success. The critical question to ask is no longer, “Why do water supplies fail?”, but “Why do they fail and why haven’t rural communities and/or service providers kept them running (WHO guideline for Drinking Water, 2004)?”