Are Water Policies in East Africa Helping?

Carrying water
Photo courtesy of WaterAid.org

How does water policy influence access to water?  What are the current water policies?  Are they improving access to water?  These questions are important because water policy may shows how committed a country is to providing water to its citizens.  Water is a basic human necessity and an unfortunately scarce and inaccessible resource in some East African countries.  

Because water policy is country specific, this entry will focus on Tanzanian water policy as a case study for how water policy influences access to water.  The history of water policy sets the stage for the current issues surrounding water.  The history of the water sector in Tanzania dates back to the 1930s when water supply was confined to urban areas and farming settlements owned by foreign settlers.  The first real water plan was the Rural Water Supply Programme, which lasted from 1971 to 1991 and aimed to provide water within 400 meters of every household by 1991.  This program grew out of the Ujumaa program a 10 year socialist period where 70% of the Tanzanian population was relocated to village centers.  In 1972 the central government abolished local government authorities and then ironically labeled this 'decentralization.'  The district water department operated without input from local people and in subsequent year's public services collapsed and there was a serious outbreak of cholera in many urban areas in the late 1970s.  This failure of the central government to provide water to people led to the re-establishment of Town and Municipal Councils in 1978.    

The first National Water Policy was created in 1991.  This policy also aimed to provide water within 400 meters of every household by 2002.  The greatest contribution of the 1991 National Water Policy was the creation of village water committees in each village.  In July of 2002 a new National Water Policy was revised through a multi-stakeholder consultation that followed many national and international policy reforms of the 1990s.  There were 4 key revisions to the policy and they focused on increasing community ownership and management of water facilities and private sector participation.  However, under this policy communities assumed responsibility for maintaining facilities without having adequate financial resources to do this

Pumping water.
Photo courtesy of UNICEF

In 2006, the National Water Sector Development Strategy and National Water Sector Development Programme were implemented.  The National Water Sector Development Strategy sets out a strategy for implementing the National Water Policy of 2002 and is guided by the principles of decentralization and localization of management and resources.  The National Water Sector Development Programme promotes the integration of water supply and sanitation with hygiene education.

One important thing to bring up is that past and current water policies in Tanzania are influenced by larger international policies.  One example is the UN Millennium Development Goals, which call for a massive worldwide increase of access to water services.  The Tanzania water sector performance targets are derived from the Millennium Development Goals and aimed to increase the proportion of the rural population with access to clean water from 53% in 2003 to 65% in 2010 and increase the urban population's access to clean water from 73% in 2003 to 90% by 2012.

 

Figure 1.Percentage of the Tanzanian population
with access to improved water facilities. 
The percentage is going down in both urban
 and rural areas.
Figure courtesy of mtega.com

So how are these policies actually affecting access to water in Tanzania?  Are they effective?  While this is a hard question to answer Tanzania is far from reaching its goal of providing water within 400 meters of every household.  In the 2000s, there was actually a decrease in the access to improved water supplies.  According to the NGO WaterAid only 54% of the population has access to improved water facilities.  A World Bank report published in 2012 reported that only 44% of the rural population in Tanzania had access to improved water sources.  Improved water sources are water sources that do not include things like lakes or streams, which are often dirty and polluted.  These numbers are all far below the government policy targets. 

While Tanzanian water policy has great goals of improving access to water they are failing in delivering on those promises.  There are however several international NGOs that are trying to make up where Tanzanian water policies fell short.  WaterAid and ADRA are two such organizations and both focus on improving access to water for rural populations.  Regardless if it is the government or international NGOs that are working to improve access to water it is important that work continues on this issue.  Access to water is a basic right of every person on this planet in order to live a healthy life.