Issue: December 2006
Across much of the developing world, access to clean water is an immeasurably greater threat to human security than violent conflict, according to the report.
“Water is a basic human need and a fundamental human right. Access to water, a simple resource that many in rich countries take for granted, has implications for improving life chances, expanding choice, and the exercise of basic human freedoms,” said Kemal Dervis in his openning speech.
For the full report, please click.
After a costly setback in human development in the first half of the 1990s, Central and Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) have recovered strongly, and progress since 1990 in East and South Asia continues to accelerate. But sub-Saharan Africa shows no sign of improving, principally because of the devastating effect of HIV/AIDS on life expectancy.
The countries at the top and bottom of the rankings in the 2006 Human Development Report are unchanged from the 2005 Human Development Report; Norway ranks highest, while Niger is at the bottom of the index. People in Norway are more than 40 times wealthier than people in Niger and they live almost twice as long. They also enjoy near-universal enrollment in primary, secondary and higer education, compared with an enrollment rate of 21 percent in Niger.
The combined income of the 500 richest people in the world now exceeds that of the poorest 416 million people.
The 10.8 million child deaths in 2004 bear testimony to inequality in the most fundamental human challenge—staying alive, says the Report. “Being born on the wrong street in the global village carries with it a large risk in terms of survival prospects,” write the authors, who note that only three sub-Saharan African countries will reach the goal of cutting overall rates of child mortality by two-thirds by 2015. Reaching that goal on time would save the lives of 4.4 million children who will otherwise die that year.
One of the central human-development challenges ahead, the authors stress, is to diminish tolerance for the extreme inequalities that have characterized globalization since the early 1990s, and to ensure that the rising tide of prosperity extends opportunities for the many, and not just the privileged few.
In the slums of Nairobi (capital of Kenya), the poor pay five to 10 times more per litre of water than wealthy people living in the same city. The poorest households of El Salvador, Nicaragua and Jamaica spend on average over 10 percent of their income on water. In the United Kingdom, by contrast, spending more than three percent of family income on water is considered an economic hardship.
For 1.1 billion people around the world, water sources can be unreliable, unsafe or beyond their purchasing power. ‘Not having access to clean water’ is a euphemism for profound deprivation. It means that people walk more than one kilometre to the nearest source of clean water for drinking. Or they collect water from drains, ditches or streams that might be infected with pathogens and bacteria which can cause severe illness and death.
While the rich usually get water from a single supplier, the poor have to reckon with a bewildering array of service providers, such as public standpipes, vendors, truckers, and water carriers. As a result, water delivered through a vendor is often 10 to 20 times more costly than water provided by the public utility.
2006 Human Development Report advocates for all governments to go beyond vague constitutional principles in enabling legislation to ensure the human right to a secure, accessible and affordable supply of water. At a minimum, this implies a target of at least 20 litres of clean water a day for every citizen—and at no cost for those too poor to pay.
2006 Human Development Report lays out a number of recommendations on how to make this a reality:
The 2006 Human Development Report calls for 20 litres of clean water a day for all people as a human right.
Across much of the developing world, unclean water is an immeasurably greater threat to human security than violent conflict. Yet unlike wars and natural disasters, this global crisis does not galvanise concerted international action. “Like hunger, it is a silent emergency experienced by the poor and tolerated by those with the resources, the technology and the political power to end it” says the 2006 Human Development Report.
Delivering clean water, removing waste water, and providing sanitation are three of the most basic foundations for human progress. But 1.1 billion people do not have access to water, and 2.6 billion do not have access to sanitation.
Shoring up the rights of the rural poor, increasing their access to irrigation and new technology and helping them adapt to inevitable climate change will be imperative to ward off disaster. Faced with these challenges, the need for increasing cooperation across national borders to ensure water security for the poor is more tangible than ever; as by 2025, over three billion people could be living in countries under water stress.
“National governments need to draw up credible plans and strategies for tackling the crisis in water and sanitation. But we also need a Global Action Plan—with active buy-in from the G8 countries—to focus fragmented international efforts to mobilize resources and galvanize political action by putting water and sanitation front and centre on the development agenda,” says the 2006 Report.
The report estimates the total additional cost of achieving the Millenium Development Goals (MDG) on access to water and sanitation—to be sourced domestically and internationally—at about $10 billion a year. “The $10 billion price tag for the MDG seems a large sum—but it has to be put in context. It represents less than five days’ worth of global military spending and less than half of what rich countries spend each year on mineral water.”
In addition to creating a Global Action Plan, Human Development Report 2006 recommends that the following three foundations are crucial for success:
More than 2.6 billion people still lack access to proper sanitation, and 1.1 billion people have no regular access to clean water. In many regions of sub-Saharan Africa, people draw water for drinking, cooking and washing from rivers, lakes, ditches and drains fouled with human and animal excrement. In slums like Kibera, outside Nairobi (Kenya), people defecate in plastic bags and throw them into the street because they have no other option...
As a result, 1.8 million children die from diarrhoea each year.
Improving sanitation in the home— advancing from open defecation to using a pit latrine to installing a flush toilet—reduces overall child mortality by about a third.
The crisis in water and sanitation is—above all—a crisis for the poor. More than 660 million people without sanitation live on US$2 or less a day, and more than 385 million live on $1 or less a day.
However, instead of being recognized as the international emergency it is, sanitation is entirely absent from political campaigns and public debate. The realities of open defecation are relegated to backroom politics. Because the crisis in sanitation overwhelmingly targets the poor, its taboo remains stubbornly intact.
Women’s burden is even bigger
Gender inequality is a second major impediment to progress. Young girls, particularly after puberty, are less likely to attend classes if schools do not have suitable hygiene facilities. About half the girls in Sub-Saharan Africa who drop out of school do so because of poor water and sanitation facilities.
Solution from the ground up
Grassroots action combined with government leadership can improve sanitation for the poor. In the Orangi slum of Pakistan’s capital, Karachi, public participation in a grassroots sanitation project has helped bring about a drop in infant mortality from 130 deaths per 1,000 live births in the early 1980s to fewer than 40 deaths per 1,000 live births today.
Ten years ago, Bangladesh had one of the lowest levels in the world of access to proper sanitation in its rural areas. It is now on target to achieve nationwide sanitation coverage by 2010, thanks to a ‘total sanitation campaign’ promoted by NGOs and local authorities.
2006 Human Development Report lays out the following steps as prerequisites for progress:
The great majority of the world’s malnourished people—estimated now at 830 million —is small farmers, herders, and farm labourers. The regions where the world’s hungry are now concentrated will have to absorb the bulk of the planet’s additional population over the next decades, estimated at 2.4 billion by 2050. And as most of them will be dependent on rainfed agriculture, the number of those at risk will continue to rise.
Climate change threatens to intensify water insecurity on an unparalleled scale. Even with an agreement to mitigate carbon emissions through international cooperation, dangerous climate change is now almost inevitable, and the most severe consequences will be experienced by countries and people who bear no responsibility for the problem. Parts of sub-Saharan Africa are facing crop losses of up to 25 percent from climate-change-induced weather patterns. Meanwhile, accelerated glacial melt and reduced rainfall threaten major food systems in South Asia.
As climate change disproportionately hurts the rural poor who depend on agriculture but lack established rights, economic empowerment and a political voice, increasing competition for water has the potential to push these people ever closer to disaster. More and more, farmers are losing out to the growing thirst of cities and industries. Within agriculture, larger commercial producers are siphoning off the lifeline water supplies of poorer farmers, who then can neither produce a secure food supply for themselves nor begin to compete with these commercial rivals, let alone the heavily subsidized agricultural might of the developed world.
Compounding the formidable dual challenge of competition and climate change is the fact that the number of people who need to be fed continues to rise. And as people get wealthier, they tend to eat different things, and meat and sugar are much more water-intensive to produce than wheat or rice. Producing a single hamburger takes about 11,000 litres of water—roughly the same daily allotment as that of 500 residents of an urban slum without a household water connection.
Solutions for the future
2006 Global Human Development Report recommends three primary courses of action to address the crisis threatening poor farmers:
90% of the world’s population lives in countries that share their water supplies with other countries. This interdependence can give rise to political tension across borders, but most shared water resources are managed peacefully through cross-border engineering and diplomacy.
Problems start when water—from rivers, lakes, aquifers or wetlands—is not managed properly. While most countries have institutional rules and regulations for allocating water and resolving disputes within their boundaries, cross-border mechanisms are much weaker, and the mix of water stress and flimsy institutions can carry a real risk of conflict.
In the past 50 years, there have been 37 cases of reported violence between states over water; all but seven incidences took place in the Middle East. Yet over the same period, more than 200 treaties on water were negotiated between countries, says the 2006 Human Development Report.
Water scarcity is an acute problem throughout the Middle East. Nowhere is this more starkly apparent than in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. The Palestinian population is half the size of Israel’s, but consumes only 10–15 percent as much water.
The report points out to the fact that there are no blueprints for ensuring equity among water users in the financing of irrigation infrastructure; and because the capital costs of building irrigation systems are far too high for poor farmers to bear, a more fair system of water pricing based on agricultural producers' ability to pay and the scope of services provided should be adopted, as it is already practised in better performing irrigation systems worldwide, such as in Turkey, Egypt, Morocco and East Asian countries.
In the chapter about transboundary waters, Turkey’s name is mentioned as follows:
‘Upstream use determines downstream options in water management, setting the stage for dispute or cooperation. Nowhere is this more apparent than in irrigation. Among countries with highly developed irrigation systems, Egypt, Iraq, Syria, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan depend on rivers flowing from their neighbours for two-thirds or more of their water. Changed water use patterns in upstream countries can seriously affect agricultural systems and rural livelihoods downstream. In all these cases even modest changes in water use upstream can profoundly affect all aspects of human development.
Water priorities can look very different from different sides of the border. According to the 2006 Report, one-fifth of Turkey’s irrigable land is in the eight south-eastern provinces where the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers originate. Against this backdrop it is not difficult to appreciate the Southeast Anatolia Project’s importance to Turkey. But one in five Syrians also live in the area surrounding the Euphrates, and the two rivers flow past Iraq’s two most populous cities, Baghdad and Basra. Managing rival claims in a way that balances national interests with wider responsibilities requires a high order of political leadership.’
Report also mentions the danger caused by the mineral poisoning in Turkey’s water resources. Report says: ‘One of the concentration zone in Africa extends along the East African Rift from Eritrea to Malawi, another from Turkey through Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, India, northern Thailand and China. The latest information shows that fluorosis is endemic in at least 25 countries across the globe. The total number of people affected is not known, but a conservative estimate would be in the tens of millions.
Human Development in the World and Turkey in 2006 Report – General Trends
In terms of human development, as noted in the 2006 HDI, Norway is the most successful country in the world with a 0.965 HDI value, followed by Iceland and Australia. New EU member states of Czech Republic and Hungary rank in the “high development” category at 30th and 35th positions respectively, alongside EU candidate countries of Bulgaria and Romania at 54th and 60th positions.
As it is seen in the table above, all regions of the world have increased their HDI score since the mid 1970s. Turkey has also made continuous progress. Countries of Eastern Europe and Central Asia, following a severe decline in the first half of the 1990s, have also recovered strongly and regained their levels. For Sub Saharan African countries however, the trend has been the reverse, principally due the significant effect of HIV AIDS on life expectancy. Sierra Leone and Niger rank at the lowest end of the human development index.
As the table indicates, Turkey’s increased human development ranking in 2006 has been most positively affected by an aggregate increase in income, with a GDP per capita of $7,753 (PPP – Purchasing Power Parity). At the same time, as the HDI indicates, Turkey continues to face ongoing human development challenges especially in the areas of education and life expectancy. For example, with a GDP per capita of $4.390 (PPP), Sri Lanka ranks 93rd right after Turkey. In these areas, Turkey has been outperformed by poorer countries such as Albania and Bosnia. Additionally, like Saudi Arabia and Iran, Turkey’s overall HDI rank is lower than its income rank which “draws attention to the fact that some countries are better than others at converting wealth into opportunities for health and education,” argues the 2006 UNDP Global Human Development Report.
These development challenges facing Turkey are also recognized in the National Millennium Development Goal Report, released in 2005 by the Turkish Government, which highlighted the overall issues of gender and regional disparities, and more specifically within the sectors of health and education, as the more significant development challenges facing the country.
|
HDI Rank |
Country |
HDI Value |
Life Expectancy at Birth |
Adult Literacy Rate |
Combined school enrollment ratio |
GDP Per Capita |
|
1 |
Norway |
0.965 |
79.6 |
100 |
100 |
38,454 |
|
2 |
Iceland |
0.96 |
80.9 |
100 |
96 |
33,051 |
|
3 |
Australia |
0.957 |
80.5 |
100 |
113 |
30,331 |
|
30 |
Czech Republic |
0.885 |
75.7 |
100 |
81 |
19,408 |
|
35 |
Hungary |
0.869 |
73 |
100 |
87 |
16,814 |
|
54 |
Bulgaria |
0.816 |
72.4 |
98.2 |
81 |
8,078 |
|
60 |
Romannia |
0.805 |
71.5 |
97.3 |
75 |
8,480 |
|
76 |
Saudi Arabia |
0.777 |
72 |
79.4 |
59 |
13,825* |
|
91 |
Paraguay |
0.757 |
71.2 |
93 |
70 |
4,813* |
|
92 |
Turkey |
0.757 |
68.9 |
87.4 |
69 |
7,753 |
|
93 |
Sri Lanka |
0.755 |
74.3 |
90.7 |
63 |
4,390 |
|
96 |
Iran |
0.746 |
70.7 |
77 |
72 |
7,525 |
|
176 |
Sierra Leone |
0.335 |
41 |
35.1 |
65 |
561 |
|
177 |
Niger |
0.311 |
44.6 |
28.7 |
21 |
779* |
* Estimate is based on regression
27 % OF THE POPULATION IS BELOW NATIONAL POVERTY LINE
The Human Development Report for 2006 also provides the Human Poverty Index (HPI) for 102 developing countries – a composite index measuring deprivations and capturing social exclusion. Turkey ranks at 21st among the 102 developing countries with a human poverty value of 9.8 percent, meaning approximately 7 million people in Turkey are deprived of some basic amenities such as access to education or facing the threat of social exclusion due to lack of educational attainment. According to the same table, 3.4 % of the population lives below the $1 a day income poverty line, while 18.7 % lives below the $2 a day income poverty line. Overall, 27 % of the population lives below the national poverty line determined for Turkey.
|
HDI rank |
Country |
Human Poverty Index (HPI-1) |
Population below income poverty line (%) |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
rank |
value (%) |
$ 1 a day |
$ 2 a day |
National poverty line |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
74 |
Thailand |
19 |
9.3 |
2 |
25.2 |
13.1 |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
78 |
Lebanon |
20 |
9.6 |
.. |
.. |
.. |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
92 |
Turkey |
21 |
9.8 |
3.4 |
18.7 |
27 |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
69 |
In Gender Equality Turkey Ranks Fourth From Bottom Among 75 CountriesOne of the indices that the report also provides is the Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM) which is intended to measure women’s and men’s abilities to participate actively in economic and political life and their command over economic resources.Ankara, Aralık 2006The GEM measures three dimensions in this area: political participation and decision-making power; economic participation and decision-making power; and command over economic resources. While the index was conducted, four basic data is used; seats in parliament held by women, number of female legislators, senior officers and managers, plus female professionals and technical workers, and the ratio estimated female to male earned income. In 2006, Turkey ranks at 72nd out of the 75 countries globally for which the relevant Gender Empowerment Measure statistics are available. In this regard, Turkey is followed only by Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen. Although Turkey follows a more successful profile in Gender-related Development Index (GDI), one of the most important reasons why she is at the last ranks is that the ratio of 4.4 % female parliaments. Other reasons include a 7 % ratio of female legislators, senior officers and managers, a 31 % ratio of female professionals and technical workers and a 35 % ratio estimated female to male earned income.
How is the Index calculated?Each year since 1990, UNDP through the Human Development Report has published the Human Development Index (HDI) that looks beyond economic growth measures and gross domestic product to a broader definition of well being.Ankara, Aralık 2006Human development is first and foremost about allowing people to lead a life that they value and enabling them to realize their potential as human beings. The normative framework for human development is today reflected in the broad vision set out in the Millennium Development Goals, the internationally agreed set of time-bound goals for reducing extreme poverty, extending gender equality and advancing opportunities for health and education. Progress towards these objectives provides a benchmark for assessing the international community’s resolve in translating commitments into action. More than that, it is a condition for building shared prosperity and collective security in our increasingly interdependent world. The HDI provides a composite measure of three dimensions of human development: living a long and healthy life (measured by life expectancy), being educated (measured by adult literacy and enrolment at the primary, secondary and tertiary level) and having a decent standard of living (measured by purchasing power parity, PPP, income). The index released by UNDP is not in any sense a comprehensive measure of human development. The role of both the impossibility to measure some human development indicators, and their debatable characteristics, can not be denied. It does not, for example, include important indicators such as inequality and difficult to measure indicators like respect for human rights and political freedoms. What it does provide is a broadened prism for viewing human progress and the complex relationship between income and wellbeing. Through this focus, the Human Development Reports argue that development is ultimately ‘a process of enlarging people’s choices,’ not just raising national incomes. UNDP believes that rising incomes may not necessarily mean change in other dimensions such as child mortality and school enrollment. The Human Development Index as a whole is a barometer for changes in human-well being and for comparing progress in different regions and among countries. The 2006 Human Development Index relies on 2004 statistics provided by national governments. Based on this data, the HDI provides a ranking for 175 UN Member States, in addition to Hong Kong (China), and the Occupied Palestinian Territories for a total of 177 countries and areas. Contributors | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||