Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Abstract
In this article the authors document evolving attitudes, policies and roles of stakeholders in
wastewater and faecal-sludge management in India, China and Ghana. In each country there
is momentum for expanding not just access to sanitation at the household/community levels,
but also for greater treatment and safe end-of-life management of human excreta.
Governments are increasingly looking to engage the private sector, but models of
engagement that make a compelling business case and instil confidence in cost recovery will
have to emerge before the private sector takes an active role in wastewater and faecal sludge
treatment in low-income countries.
Introduction
For decades, the provision of sanitation has lagged behind safe drinking water. Only 37% of
aid funding for water and sanitation was directed to the latter in 2008; national sanitation
policies seldom exist; and local communities share this bias (WHO 2004, UNDP 2006, WHO
and UN-Water 2010). Sanitation was tacked on to Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)
as an afterthought in 2002 as a result of pressure from sector professionals (International
Water Association Sanitation 21 Task Force 2007). Today improved sanitation 1 is widely
recognized as a critical component of community and environmental health. Sanitation
interventions alone have the potential to reduce diarrhoea-related diseases by up to 37%
(Mara et al. 2010), a significant share of the 7% of global disease attributed to inadequate
water, sanitation and hygiene (Pruss-Ustun Bos et al. 2008).
Yet progress has inched toward meeting even the conservative MDG of “halving the
proportion of people without access to improved sanitation by 2015 (from the 1990 baseline
figure)”. By 2006, this proportion had only decreased by eight percentage points, and at the
current pace, Africa will not meet the sanitation MDG until 2108 (WHO and UNICEF 2008,
Cairncross et al. 2010).
Sanitation scholars and practitioners are increasingly questioning the extent to which proper
conveyance, treatment and final disposal/reuse of wastewater and faecal sludge 2 (FS) can be
ignored – as they largely have been to date – in the broader effort to achieve the benefits of
sanitation (International Water Association Sanitation 21 Task Force2007, Hall and
Lobina 2008, World Water Assessment Program 2009).
In most low- and middle-income countries in Asia and Africa, wastewater and FS undergo no
or minimum treatment – even if the population is considered to have improved sanitation.
However, changes in policies and regulatory frameworks, increasing scarcity of freshwater
resources, economic development and desire to attract local and foreign investment, and
pressure from donor agencies may all be contributing to an upsurge in investment and
attention to wastewater and FS treatment beyond providing access to a toilet. In this context,
we consider adequate sanitation from the perspective of local institutions. In particular, we
present three case studies from low- and middle-income countries – India, China and Ghana –
that detail public and private efforts and interactions, key challenges and incentives for
expanding wastewater and FS treatment.
India and China, the world's most populous countries, are home to 38% of the 1.3 billion
people who have gained access to improved sanitation between 1990 and 2008 (WHO and
UNICEF 2010). Thus, it is interesting to consider their progress towards the next level of
sanitation. At the other end of the spectrum is Sub-Saharan Africa, with less than 50%
coverage of improved sanitation. We selected Ghana as representative of this group.
Methods
Each case study comprises a three-part descriptive summary of the country's sanitation sector
that includes situational, institutional and private-sector analyses. Each relies on primary data
collection, including key informant interviews and site visits, combined with secondary data
collection from government reports, published statistics and databases and literature reviews.
India
Institutional analysis
India's wastewater sector: policies, objectives and programmes
The drought of 1987 led to the development of a National Water Policy (NWP) by the Indian
Ministry of Water Resources in September of that year; it was updated in September 2002.
The NWP contains guidelines for wastewater management, including the stipulation that all
urban wastewater be treated. It defines the practices required to ensure water quality,
endorses the “polluter pays” principle, and recognizes the need to increase urban water tariffs
and wastewater treatment coverage. Increased participation in water resources management
by the private sector is also emphasized, with the expectation that it will lead to efficiency
gains.
The Ganga Action Plan (GAP) Phase-I was taken up in June 1985 as a 100% centrally funded
scheme to prevent and mitigate pollution of the River Ganga. The plan was later extended to
other major rivers of the country under two separate schemes of GAP Phase-II and the
National River Conservation Plan (NRCP). As of 31 December 2009, a total of Rs 29.6 B
(USD 621 M) was released by the central government for the construction of sewage
treatment plants (STP) to clean up 38 rivers across 20 states to tackle a pollution load of more
than 4,000 ML/day. 4
Legal regulations related to water pollution in India are incomplete. The Water Act (1974 and
amended in 1988) covers industrial effluent standards, but ignores the domestic and
municipal effluents even though they constitute 90% of India's wastewater volumes
(Sawhney 2004). Pollution of both surface and groundwater sources and its associated
problems constitute one of India's biggest environmental problems. The market for advanced
wastewater-treatment technologies among industries and municipal corporations accounts for
the largest percentage of the total environmental market in India (Winrock International
India 2007).
A survey by the US Trade Department (quoted in Swiss Business Hub India et al. [2004])
found that the total market potential for water and wastewater treatment including the
requirements of the municipal and industrial sectors was on the order of US$900 million, and
is expected to grow at approximately 14% each year. In economic terms, industrial
wastewater treatment accounts for nearly half of the total market for wastewater treatment,
given the higher cost of technologies that are effective for such waste streams compared to
municipal wastewater. The water and wastewater treatment sectors also account for the
highest environmental spending within both the public and private sectors. Considering the
fact that conventional treatment techniques are extremely expensive for countries such as
India, there is an urgent need for the development of alternate and affordable methods of
treating and recycling wastewater.
Investment in urban water supply and sanitation has increased during the first decade of the
twenty-first century. Under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission, along
with loans from the Housing and Urban Development Corporation (HUDCO), there has been
an increase in central government grants made available. The 11th Five-year Plan (2007–12)
foresees investments of Rs 1270 billion (US$28.8 billion) for urban water supply and
sanitation, including urban (stormwater) drainage and solid-waste management (Planning
Commission of India2007). Fifty-five percent of the investments foreseen under the 11th Plan
are to be financed by the central government, 28% by state governments, 8% by “institutional
financing” such as HUDCO, 8% by external agencies and 1.5% by the private sector. The
volume of investments is expected to double to reach 0.7% of GDP (Planning Commission of
India 2007).
China
Institutional analysis
Ghana
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