scholarly journals Who is being left behind? An analysis of improved drinking water and basic sanitation access in the Vietnamese Mekong Delta

2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 508-519 ◽  
Author(s):  
Caitlin A. Grady ◽  
Kien Van Nguyen ◽  
Thai Van Nguyen ◽  
Ernest R. Blatchley

Abstract The global community has made tremendous strides in providing access to water and sanitation in recent decades. Driven by the United Nations Millennium Development Goals, which sought to halve the proportion of the global population without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation, billions of people now have access to these basic human rights. As the global community works to implement the next generation of development goals, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), it is critical to determine how unserved populations can be reached. To investigate indicators of water and sanitation access, surveys were conducted among 300 households in the Vietnamese Mekong Delta. Households with and without access to improved water or basic sanitation were identified and data from these surveys were subjected to multiple regression analyses to identify household characteristics that correlate with access. It was found that for households without access to either water or sanitation, three variables were statistically significant predictors of access: distance to local government, household floor material, and the gender of the household water manager. Predictors of access to water and sanitation were evaluated separately. This integrated water and sanitation case study draws several implications for this next phase of SDG development programming.

Author(s):  
Abdi D. Osman ◽  
Priscilla Robinson ◽  
Vivian Lin ◽  
Darryl Jackson ◽  
Mutuku Mwanthi

Globally, the provision of clean and safe drinking water to most populations has been an elusive development goal though some of us take the availability of this vital resource for granted. Millennium Development Goals (MDG) target 7.C is the target, which addresses sustainability and access to water, among other developmental goals. As the preceding targets appear elusive, Kenya is now refocussing on Vision 2030. It is important to identify reasons for this to avoid a repetition during the next fifteen years. In order to discover the factors hampering these achievements, all possible contributing factors need to be investigated and the focus of this chapter is the Kenya national legislation and policies. Based on the findings, we recommend a reassessment of policies on groundwater management, reconsideration of ideal universal goals and political commitment by state and organisational accountability to identify better strategies for achieving internationally identified standards and goals.


Author(s):  
S. K. Sarkar ◽  
Girija K. Bharat

Abstract India, with over 1.37 billion population and housing one-sixth of the world's inhabitants, has a significant role to play in the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This paper analyses the policies and programmes of the Government of India, towards the achievement of Targets 6.1 and 6.2 of SDG-6 that focus on safe drinking water and sanitation. The alignment of the policies and programmes is discussed in correlation of the output, outcome, and impacts on these targets of SDG 6. The Swachh Bharat (Clean India) Mission (SBM) launched in 2014 led the country with more than 98% of households having access to toilets. The Jal Jeevan Mission has the ambitious target of universal coverage of drinking water supply. While these programmes have led to the overall development, a vast scope of improvement in these sectors exists especially considering the growing population, economic activity, urbanisation, and climate change impacts. Analysis also shows that adequate quantitative and qualitative data on the implementation of the various policies and programmes would be instrumental in synergising the implementation of the SDGs. A systems-thinking approach for sustaining the efforts of the ongoing programmes and ensuring equitable benefits of development in the water and sanitation sectors in India is recommended.


2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (11) ◽  
pp. 437 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jesper Katomero ◽  
Yola Georgiadou

Informality is pervasive in Tanzania’s rural waterscape, but not acknowledged by development partners (donors and beneficiaries), despite persistent warnings by development scholars. Informality is thus the proverbial elephant in the room. In this paper, we examine a case of superior rural water access in two geographical locales—Hai and Siha districts—in Tanzania, where actors not only acknowledge, but actively harness informality to provide access to water to rural populations. We employ concepts from organization and institutional theory to show that when informal programs and related informal sanctions/rewards complement their formal counterparts, chances for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) target 6.1 ‘By 2030, achieve universal and equitable access to safe and affordable drinking water for all’ are significantly increased.


Author(s):  
Abdi D. Osman ◽  
Priscilla Robinson ◽  
Vivian Lin ◽  
Darryl Jackson ◽  
Mutuku Mwanthi

Globally, the provision of clean and safe drinking water to most populations has been an elusive development goal though some of us take the availability of this vital resource for granted. Millennium Development Goals (MDG) target 7.C is the target, which addresses sustainability and access to water, among other developmental goals. As the preceding targets appear elusive, Kenya is now refocussing on Vision 2030. It is important to identify reasons for this to avoid a repetition during the next fifteen years. In order to discover the factors hampering these achievements, all possible contributing factors need to be investigated and the focus of this chapter is the Kenya national legislation and policies. Based on the findings, we recommend a reassessment of policies on groundwater management, reconsideration of ideal universal goals and political commitment by state and organisational accountability to identify better strategies for achieving internationally identified standards and goals.


2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (10) ◽  
pp. 3640 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hussam Hussein ◽  
Filippo Menga ◽  
Francesca Greco

This article contributes to critical sustainability studies through an interrogation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and their action towards improving access to water and sanitation. This is done through an analysis of ‘SDG 6: Ensure access to water and sanitation for all’, specifically focusing on Target 6.5: ‘By 2030, implement integrated water-resources management at all levels, including through transboundary cooperation as appropriate’, and its related Indicator 6.5.2, ‘Proportion of transboundary basin area with an operational arrangement for water cooperation’. While on paper Target 6.5 might seem relatively unproblematic, this article shows that its implementation could have some unintended practical implications for countries sharing transboundary waters. This article fine-tunes SDG 6.5.2 by suggesting two additional qualitative steps to improve the indicator. These qualitative dimensions are deemed extremely important for two reasons: the first one is the need to unfold and tackle inequitable water agreements; the second reason is to assess, recognize, and promote the role of civil society, NGOs, and technical and informal cooperation as a positive path toward the actual achievement of formal cooperation. The two steps that we propose are deemed essential if the United Nations (UN) is going to include SDG 6.5.2 as a proactive tool in the achievement of “implementing integrated water-resources management at all levels, including through transboundary cooperation as appropriate”, as declared in the 2030 agenda.


2010 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 2-16 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guy Howard ◽  
Katrina Charles ◽  
Kathy Pond ◽  
Anca Brookshaw ◽  
Rifat Hossain ◽  
...  

Drinking-water supply and sanitation services are essential for human health, but their technologies and management systems are potentially vulnerable to climate change. An assessment was made of the resilience of water supply and sanitation systems against forecast climate changes by 2020 and 2030. The results showed very few technologies are resilient to climate change and the sustainability of the current progress towards the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) may be significantly undermined. Management approaches are more important than technology in building resilience for water supply, but the reverse is true for sanitation. Whilst climate change represents a significant threat to sustainable drinking-water and sanitation services, through no-regrets actions and using opportunities to increase service quality, climate change may be a driver for improvements that have been insufficiently delivered to date.


2019 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 1-1
Author(s):  
Ayako Kagawa ◽  
Kyoung-Soo Eom

<p><strong>Abstract.</strong> The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development or also known as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is the new global paradigm and blueprint to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all. To collectively achieve the SDGs, the global community agreed on 17 Goals as a baseline framework to measure and monitor its growth. How to measure and monitor development progress by countries has been a long-standing debate since the era of Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in the 2000s but with the establishment of Inter-Agency and Expert Group on SDG Indicators (IAEG-SDGs), the SDGs have a clearer framework on how to monitor progress and the global community are grappling on how to effectively collect, analyse, visualise and report their successes.</p><p>Within the United Nations, there is the desire to elaborate collectively principles and tools on how best to report the SDGs at country and local level as its success lies in the ownership and accountability at all levels. The Secretary-General of the United Nations is looking into how technologies can accelerate the SDGs and to facilitate the alignments with the values enshrined in the United Nations Charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the norms and standards of International Laws.</p><p>In this paradigm, what should be the role of cartographers and geospatial information management experts to ensure how maps and geospatial information can be effectively used by the global community to communicate their challenges and successes from planning to implementing, monitoring, analysing, visualising and reporting on sustainable development? This paper argues the importance of understanding the challenges, asking questions to the policy makers, sharing best practices and building a consensus on the issues surrounding the SDGs before demonstrating the diverse cartographic skills available to design and communicate the intended message better. Hence, the importance of context has never changed and provides the cartographic and geospatial information management community an opportunity to demonstrate the potential and to provide effective support through cartography for the accomplishment of the sustainable development agenda.</p>


Author(s):  
Dr. Basanta Kalita

The SDGs agenda is the outcome of a series of international conferences on the issue of environmental sustainability. A principle of common and differentiated responsibility was endorsed by the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development (1992) and the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, Rio+20 (2012). The political commitments from the world leaders were confirmed during the 3rd International Conference on Financing for Development held in Addis Ababa in July 2015 for a common policy on sustainable development. The goals are broad based and interdependent. Finally the Paris Declaration on Climate Change (2016) paved the way for the adoption of a comprehensive list of goals to be achieved by 2030. Each of the 17 sustainable development goals has a list of targets which are measured with indicators and are interdependent. The present study will be confined to the 6th goal which is ensuring “Clean water and Sanitation” in the Indian context. KEYWORDS: SDGs agenda, Climate Change, employment, sanitation services


Author(s):  
Cristy Clark

Since the 1970s, global goal setting to increase access to safe drinking water has taken a number of different approaches to whether water should be primarily understood as a “human right” or a “human need.” In the Mar del Plata declaration of 1977, states both recognized a human right to water and committed themselves to achieving universal access by 1990. By the 1990 New Delhi Statement, with universal access still out of reach, the goal was renewed with a new deadline of 2000, but water was described as a human need rather than a human right. This approach was coupled with an emphasis on water’s economic values and the need for increased cost recovery, which in turn increased the focus on, and uptake of, private-sector participation in the delivery of water and sanitation services across the Global South. A similar needs-based approach was adopted at the start of the new millennium in Target 7 of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), but during this decade a consensus on the recognition of the human right to water also emerged in international law. As the normative status and content of this right came to be better articulated and understood, it began to influence the practice of providing water and sanitation services, and by the end of the MDG process a rights-based approach featured more prominently in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of 2015. While the provision of water and sanitation services is multifaceted, the evidence of global achievements from the 1970s onward indicates that a rights-based approach increases the priority given to the social values of such services and focuses attention on the need to go beyond technical solutions to address the structural issues at the heart of water inequality. Going forward, approaches to the provision of water and sanitation services and the human right to water will need to continue to adapt to new challenges and to changing conceptualizations of water, including the growing recognition that all living things have a right to water and that water itself can have rights.


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