Poverty and Water: Explorations of the Reciprocal Relationship (Crop International Studies in Poverty Research) - Softcover

Buch 7 von 15: International Studies in Poverty Research
 
9781842779620: Poverty and Water: Explorations of the Reciprocal Relationship (Crop International Studies in Poverty Research)
Softcover
ISBN 10: 1842779621 ISBN 13: 9781842779620
Verlag: Zed Books Ltd, 2008

Inhaltsangabe

Rarely has such a contentious and complex issue emerged in twenty-first century development as that of water. In this book, co-editors David Hemson, Kassin Kulindwa, Haakon Lein, and Adolfo Mascarenhas use a global spread of case studies to illustrate that water is not simply an issue of physical scarcity, but rather a complex and politically-driven issue with profound future implications, both in the developing world and outside it. The book argues that for the international community to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, governments must step in to protect the rights of the poor. Here, the links between poverty and access to clean water are explored with an eye to political reform that can end the exploitative policies of big business and help to shape a more equitable world for all.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

David Hemson is a researcher who works within an emancipatory and developmental paradigm with a keen interest in the transformation of social and industrial relations. He has developed expertise and managed research teams in the field of rural development, gender studies, social policy, social movements and the evaluation of water and sanitation delivery. Within the HSRC he carries responsibility for appraising service delivery particularly in rural areas in the context of the shift in responsibility to local government. He is committed to the critical exploration of the unprecedented development of market relations on a world scale, the process of uneven development, and the prospects for new forms of intervention for social equality.

Kassim Kulindwa is a senior research fellow and lecturer in economics at the Economic Research Bureau, University of Dar es Salaam. His main research interest is in the field of natural resources and environmental economics in relation to the sustainable development question. He has authored and co-authored books, chapters, and articles on structural adjustment and sustainable development, poverty, energy, biodiversity, environment, water resources and fisheries resources in Tanzania among others.

Haakon Lein is associate professor at the Department of Geography at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. His main interests lies within the field of natural resource management, rural development and climate change and disasters. He has for the last 20 years been in involved in research on the role of water in rural development in Bangladesh as well water management reforms in Tanzania and China (Xingjiang)

Adolfo Mascarenhas, was the first Tanzania Director of the Bureau of Resource Assessment and Land Use Planning (BRALUP) and the founder Director of the Institute of Resource Assessment at the University of Dar es Salaam. Since 1966 BRALUP pioneered several research projects on water. In 1978-79 he was appointed as the first non-engineer consultant by UNICEF/ WHO to draft the policy paper on Water and Sanitation as Part of Primary Health Care. On his return he was entrusted through BRALUP by two donors, with the task of implementing the UNICEF/WHO policy in 5 Regions in Tanzania. His major interest and publications have been on natural resources, famines/disasters and regional planning. He is now retired from the University and works independently on Environmental and Knowledge for development issues in Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia and South Africa.
David Hemson is a researcher who works within an emancipatory and developmental paradigm with a keen interest in the transformation of social and industrial relations. He has developed expertise and managed research teams in the field of rural development, gender studies, social policy, social movements and the evaluation of water and sanitation delivery. Within the HSRC he carries responsibility for appraising service delivery particularly in rural areas in the context of the shift in responsibility to local government. He is committed to the critical exploration of the unprecedented development of market relations on a world scale, the process of uneven development, and the prospects for new forms of intervention for social equality.

Kassim Kulindwa is a senior research fellow and lecturer in economics at the Economic Research Bureau, University of Dar es Salaam. His main research interest is in the field of natural resources and environmental economics in relation to the sustainable development question. He has authored and co-authored books, chapters, and articles on structural adjustment and sustainable development, poverty, energy, biodiversity, environment, water resources and fisheries resources in Tanzania among others.

Haakon Lein is associate professor at the Department of Geography at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. His main interests lies within the field of natural resource management, rural development and climate change and disasters. He has for the last 20 years been in involved in research on the role of water in rural development in Bangladesh as well water management reforms in Tanzania and China (Xingjiang)

Adolfo Mascarenhas, was the first Tanzania Director of the Bureau of Resource Assessment and Land Use Planning (BRALUP) and the founder Director of the Institute of Resource Assessment at the University of Dar es Salaam. Since 1966 BRALUP pioneered several research projects on water. In 1978-79 he was appointed as the first non-engineer consultant by UNICEF/ WHO to draft the policy paper on Water and Sanitation as Part of Primary Health Care. On his return he was entrusted through BRALUP by two donors, with the task of implementing the UNICEF/WHO policy in 5 Regions in Tanzania. His major interest and publications have been on natural resources, famines/disasters and regional planning. He is now retired from the University and works independently on Environmental and Knowledge for development issues in Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia and South Africa.

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Poverty and Water

Explorations of the Reciprocal Relationship

By David Hemson, Kassim Kulindwa, Haakon Lein, Adolfo Mascarenhas

Zed Books Ltd

Copyright © 2008 CROP
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-84277-962-0

Contents

List of boxes, tables and figures, vi, 
1 Water and poverty: the inextricable link Kassim Kulindwa and Haakon Lein, 1, 
2 Water for all: from firm promises to 'new realism'? David Hemson, 13, 
3 It takes two to tango: steps towards change in the water sector Jaqui Goldin, 47, 
4 The link between poverty and water supply: the Nigerian example Ayodele Aderinwale and Olumide A. Ajayi, 65, 
5 Water, agricultural development and rural poverty in Bangladesh Haakon Lein, 87, 
6 Opportunities for reforming the irrigation sector: the case of the Fish-Sundays scheme of the Eastern Cape Beatrice I. Conradie, 103, 
7 Rural water supply projects appraisal and poverty eradication in Tanzania Kassim Kulindwa, 121, 
8 Easing the burden on women? Water, cholera and poverty in South Africa David Hemson, 144, 
9 Water pricing, inequality and economic welfare: how can the new South African water policy support the well-being of the urban poor? Carl-Erik Schulz, 168, 
10 Conclusion: water for the poor pays Adolfo Mascarenhas, 191, 
About the contributors, 200, 
Index, 204,


CHAPTER 1

Water and poverty: the inextricable link

Kassim Kulindwa and Haakon Lein


Introduction

'Poverty is still the gravest insult to human dignity and is still with us despite decades of international efforts to eradicate it. Life at the edge of existence.' This is how the former Chair of the World Commission on Environment and Development, and former Prime Minister of Norway, Gro Harlem Brundtland, characterised poverty. Today, more than 20 years after the Commission presented their report Our Common Future, the claim is still as valid as then.

Poverty can be defined in absolute and relative terms. Absolute poverty refers to individuals' abilities to meet their basic needs. In other words, individuals do not have the resources to meet their basic needs for healthy living and a dignified existence. They do not have the resources to provide for food, shelter, clothing and medical services, among other things. Relative poverty, on the other hand, compares the status of individuals against others in a community or society in terms of an income and wealth standard. According to this definition, the poor are those who have significantly less resources, mainly income and wealth, than others in their society.

Sen (1999) categorises poverty into 'income deprivation' and 'capability deprivation', terms that could loosely be equated to the above characterisation. It has to be noted, however, that income and capability deprivation, though different, are not necessarily independent of each other, for it is well known that although not all capabilities are determined by income, income nevertheless plays a significant part in generating capabilities. The broad definition is also acknowledged and used by many, including the EU, the World Bank and the UNDP. The UNDP considers poverty as a denial of human rights, good health, adequate nutrition, literacy and employment. It further asserts that, 'these are not favours or acts of charity to be bestowed on the poor by the governments and international agencies, instead, they are human rights as valid today as they were when the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted'. As a consequence of the denial of their rights, many of the world's poor suffer oppressive political measures which hinder their development, and therefore poverty also has a political dimension.

The measurement of poverty is not without difficulties, given its complexity of definition. In practice, various institutions dealing with world development issues and poverty have given different figures for levels of poverty. Of late, criticisms have been hurled towards both the World Bank and the UNDP alleging that the adoption of a poverty definition of 'a dollar a day' produces a distorted picture of global poverty. It is argued that this definition departs from the established concepts and procedures for measuring poverty. Although the purchasing power parity concept is applied, the arbitrary 'dollar a day' does not have a realistic basis in terms of representing poverty across localities and boundaries. The same argument goes for the representation and categorisation of countries as being poor or rich based on their GDP per capita regardless of considering distribution and other aspects of capabilities, and access and enjoyment of other goods and services, natural or otherwise, that contribute to the quality of life.

However, less controversial measures have been developed which include the various aspects of capability deprivation; these include the Human Poverty Index (HPI) and its variants. Despite the practical difficulties of the definition and measurement of poverty, it remains clear that a measure of poverty using an index may help us to gauge the trends and the rate at which change is taking place. However, to decide on policy, strategy and action, we need to decompose the components of the poverty index in order to get a clear understanding of the nature and state of the components of the 'index number' in order to determine appropriate and effective solutions and implementation. In addition to the quantitative indications, qualitative analysis of the nonquantifiable elements of capability deprivation should concomitantly be carried out.


Water and poverty

The link between water and poverty is complex, but at the same time simple to understand. Access to adequate amounts of clean water is essential for maintaining good health, and access to water for agriculture is essential for food production. For poor rural farmers, these links may be unfolding first as a daily struggle to secure enough clean water for their households as well as for watering their crops. Without access to clean water, their children may be sick and their crops may fail. However, as with most poor people, a farmer will most likely have less access to water than the more wealthy in society, and what he/she does have will be of lower quality than the water they receive. Despite this, the farmer most likely will have to pay more – in the form of labour or money – for the water received (UNDP, 2006: 48–54). Inadequate and unequal access to water is, thus, both a result and a cause of poverty.

The close link between water and poverty is made clear in the United Nations Millennium Declaration adopted by the UN General Assembly on 8 September 2000, where it is stated (under point 19; http://www.un.org/ millennium/declaration/ares552e.htm) that:

We resolve further: To halve, by the year 2015, the proportion of the world's people whose income is less than one dollar a day and the proportion of people who suffer from hunger and, by the same date, to halve the proportion of people who are unable to reach or to afford safe drinking water.


The close link between poverty reduction and access to water was weakened when the declaration became operationalised into the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Halving the world's poor population became Goal No. 1, while the issue of securing access to safe drinking water only became a target under Goal No. 7, on 'Ensuring environmental sustainability'. Despite this, the goal of halving the number of people without access to clean water is probably one of the most...

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Verlag
Zed Books Ltd
Erscheinungsdatum
2008
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
1842779621
ISBN 13 
9781842779620
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
210
Herausgeber
Hemson David, Kulindwa Kassim, Lein Haakon, Mascarenhas Adolfo
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
preigu
mail@preigu.de

Lengericher Landstr. 19
Osnabrück
49078
Deutschland

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