Water and Sanitation Services in Latin America: Access and Quality Outlook

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Analía Gómez Vidal ◽  
Fabiana Machado ◽  
Darcia Datshkovsky
Keyword(s):  
Service Quality ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Caribbean Region ◽  
Simple Task ◽  
Water And Sanitation ◽  
The Sustainable Development ◽  
Sanitation Services ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Depth Analysis ◽  
Nationally Representative

Tracking progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is critical to evaluate how far the water and sanitation sector is from achieving these targets, and to guarantee that the solutions and strategies implemented get everyone closer to them. But this is not a simple task. To truly assess collective progress towards achieving SDG 6 (and all other goals), it is fundamental to count on standardized measures that help track all types of access, their reliability, and their quality. Existing data tend to lack comparability across sources and locations because they rely on different definitions and categories. Samples are often not representative of all groups within the population. More developed areas are more likely to collect data, which results in the overrepresentation of groups that enjoy better services. Still in some areas and for some categories of information data is not available at all. In response to these challenges, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) partnered with the Latin American Public Opinion Project (LAPOP) to gather nationally representative and comparable data in 18 countries in the region. The goal of this effort was to provide an initial outlook of the current landscape of water and sanitation services in the region, using two batteries of questions in the LAPOP questionnaire for the 2018-2019 wave. The main message that arises is that the Latin American and the Caribbean region faces a wide range of challenges, that vary both across and within countries. Some areas face the primary challenge of closing access gaps, while others display higher deficiency in service quality, such as continuity. The gaps in quality of services, in particular, are not clearly perceived by users. In general, levels of satisfaction with the services received is quite high among the population, much higher than warranted by the objective measures of service quality. This raises important issues for accountability in the sector. If users are mostly satisfied with the current state of affairs, it is unlikely they will pressure governments and utilities to improve service delivery. A more in-depth analysis is required to understand the reasons behind these opinions and possible ways to raise awareness.

scholarly journals A STUDY OF DRINKING WATER AND SANITATION IN INDIA UNDER THE SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS 2030

2019 ◽  
pp. 12-20
Author(s):  
Dr. Basanta Kalita
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Environmental Sustainability ◽  
Sustainable Development Goals ◽  
Addis Ababa ◽  
Paris Declaration ◽  
Water And Sanitation ◽  
The Sustainable Development ◽  
Sanitation Services ◽  
Development Goals

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

Global Goal Setting and the Human Right to Water

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cristy Clark
Keyword(s):  
Goal Setting ◽  
Universal Access ◽  
New Delhi ◽  
Human Right ◽  
Water And Sanitation ◽  
The Sustainable Development ◽  
Sanitation Services ◽  
Human Need ◽  
Global Goal ◽  
Development Goals

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.

scholarly journals BASICS INEQUALITY

2016 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 305-325 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen P. Gasteyer ◽  
Jennifer Lai ◽  
Brittany Tucker ◽  
Jennifer Carrera ◽  
Julius Moss
Keyword(s):  
American Indians ◽  
Alaska Native ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Central Valley ◽  
The United States ◽  
Structural Racism ◽  
Human Right ◽  
Water And Sanitation ◽  
Sanitation Services ◽  
Depth Analysis

AbstractIn light of 2014–2016 media coverage about the inadequate water and sanitation services for households in places like Flint and Detroit, Michigan and the Central Valley of California, this paper asks whether places with majority non-White residents in the United States disproportionately lack access to these most basic of services. Investigating this issue through the combined lenses of structural racism, environmental justice, and the human right to water and sanitation, we analyze U.S. Census American Community Survey household data at the county level. Our findings indicate strong White versus non-White racial effects at the national and county levels (R2 = 0.0462, P < 0.05). When the non-White population is broken down into racial categories, places with higher percentages of American Indians and Alaska Native households are significantly associated with lack of access to complete plumbing facilities. Lacking access to complete plumbing does correlate with lower educational attainment and higher percentages of unemployment, and less robustly, it also correlates positively with median household income. The implication is the existence of a pattern of structural environmental racism in terms of the practical accessibility of water and sanitation infrastructure. We suspect, however, that the U.S. Census, while considered the most comprehensive national data source on this issue right now, significantly undercounts those lacking access to water and sanitation services. We argue that better data will be essential in order to carry out a more in-depth analysis of water access conditions and to develop strategies that address this issue of growing importance.

scholarly journals Achieving Sustainable Development Goals. Efficiency in the Spanish Clean Water and Sanitation Sector

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (7) ◽  
pp. 3015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pedro-José Martínez-Córdoba ◽  
Nicola Raimo ◽  
Filippo Vitolla ◽  
Bernardino Benito
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Sustainable Development Goals ◽  
Water And Sanitation ◽  
The Sustainable Development ◽  
Sanitation Services ◽  
Determining Factors ◽  
Development Goals ◽  
Local Government Budget ◽  
Private Management

In recent years, achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is becoming a major challenge for local governments. This research focuses on the role of Spanish local governments in the fulfillment of SDG-6, which aims to ensure the availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all citizens. Specifically, this study analyses the evolution of the efficiency of Spanish local governments, and its determining factors, in the achievement of the SDG-6. The results indicate that the taxes associated with water supply and sanitation services, the private management of these services, population density, local government budget revenues, the income of the inhabitants of the municipality and the fragmentation of local governments are factors that can improve the evolution of the efficiency of Spanish local governments in achieving the SDG-6.

scholarly journals Looking beyond headline indicators: water and sanitation services in small towns in Ethiopia

2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 435-446 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marieke Adank ◽  
John Butterworth ◽  
Sam Godfrey ◽  
Michael Abera
Keyword(s):  
Service Delivery ◽  
Small Towns ◽  
Water And Sanitation ◽  
The Sustainable Development ◽  
Service Levels ◽  
Sanitation Services ◽  
Service Characteristics ◽  
Second Growth ◽  
Development Goals ◽  
To Receive

This paper presents findings on water and sanitation service levels from 16 small and medium towns in four regions of Ethiopia. In these settlements, the proportion of people with access to improved water and sanitation services is found to be high and consistent with other major datasets and reports for urban Ethiopia. However, when service characteristics such as reliability, quality, quantity and accessibility (including travel and queuing time) of water are considered, and for sanitation, quality and use, a different picture emerges. Only a small minority of households, 9% for water and 3% for sanitation, were found to receive services that meet the standards set in the Ethiopian government's first Growth and Transformation Plan (GTP I). Under the second Growth and Transformation Plan (GTP II), standards for urban water services have been set higher and current performance levels are even lower. This paper illustrates the discrepancies between average coverage figures, actual service delivery levels and the increased demands of the GTP II. The paper illustrates the huge scale of the challenge faced in improving WASH service delivery levels in small towns in Ethiopia, which is an issue of wider relevance in the context of the Sustainable Development Goals.

scholarly journals 2030 Agenda for Drinking Water, Sanitation and Hygiene in Latin America and the Caribbean: A Look from the Human Rights Perspective

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Drinking Water ◽  
Latin America ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Water And Sanitation ◽  
Sanitation Services ◽  
2030 Agenda ◽  
Sanitation And Hygiene ◽  
Access To Water ◽  
The Caribbean

This document was inspired by the need to promote comprehensive actions in the management of water and sanitation services with a human rights focus within the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) related to drinking water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) in the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean; in addition, it ratifies the results reported in a PAHO study (2016) on the profound inequalities between urban and rural areas in access to water and sewage services, and the correlation with characteristics such as gender, age, income, education, among others. This report assumed this challenge using a methodology based on the Human Rights to Safe Drinking Water and Sanitation (HRWS) analytical framework. This report seeks to provide the most up-to-date overview of the SDG targets 6.1 and 6.2 situation in Latin America and the Caribbean. Besides outlining the general situation of countries, it presents some elements regarding human rights and the targets 6.1 and 6.2 that have been neglected in the initial monitoring of the 2030 Agenda, above all, the dimensions of inequality and affordability. This report presents four case studies, one per sub-regional block, with a more detailed characterization of the national and subnational situations of Colombia, Brazil, Mexico, and the Dominican Republic. The results of this study show that a significant proportion of the Latin American and Caribbean population still lacks adequate access to water and sanitation services. Only 65% of the population has access to safely managed water services, a percentage lower than that reported worldwide, which is 71%. With regard to safely managed sanitation services, the situation is even more critical, with an access level of 39% worldwide being reported, compared to 22% in our Region.

Pro-poor governance in water and sanitation service delivery: evidence from Global Analysis and Assessment of Sanitation and Drinking Water surveys

2018 ◽  
Vol 138 (5) ◽  
pp. 261-269 ◽  
Author(s):  
D Fuente ◽  
J Bartram
Keyword(s):  
Drinking Water ◽  
Global Analysis ◽  
Water And Sanitation ◽  
The Sustainable Development ◽  
Sanitation Services ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Sanitation And Hygiene ◽  
Monitoring Effort ◽  
Equity Policy ◽  
Iterative Coding

Aims: The Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) for water and sanitation seeks to achieve universal and equitable access to safe and affordable drinking water and access to adequate and equitable sanitation and hygiene. This article examines what governments are doing to achieve this, paying particular attention to actions that governments report taking to better serve the poor and other vulnerable populations (i.e. pro-poor governance). This article also assesses the extent to which, and how, UN-Water’s Global Analysis and Assessment of Sanitation and Drinking Water (GLAAS) has tracked governments’ efforts to reach the poor since the inception of this global monitoring effort. Method: This article employs qualitative document analysis and iterative coding to identify pro-poor governance themes examined in GLAAS reports from 2008 to 2016 and provides a quantitative summary of findings related to pro-poor governance from the most recent GLAAS surveys. Results: The dimensions of pro-poor governance and number of questions related to pro-poor governance in GLAAS surveys have increased from 2008 to 2016. While the majority of countries report taking actions to promote equity, many countries did not provide information about specific actions they were taking to provide better services to the poor. Moreover, several actions countries reported taking (e.g. implementing an increasing block tariff) are likely to be ineffective. Conclusion: The findings of this study raise concerns about the extent to which governments are taking – or are positioned to take – effective action to meet the SDG aspiration of safe and affordable water and sanitation services for all. Without information on what countries are doing to promote equity, policy makers and researchers are unable to discern which policies are effective in different contexts.

scholarly journals Closing the cycle? Potential and limitations of Water and Sanitation Safety Plans (WSSPs) for Latin American metropolitan areas

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 490-501
Author(s):  
Araceli Clavijo ◽  
Martín A. Iribarnegaray ◽  
María Soledad Rodriguez-Alvarez ◽  
Lucas Seghezzo
Keyword(s):  
Latin American ◽  
Metropolitan Areas ◽  
Water Cycle ◽  
Local Environment ◽  
Integrated Approach ◽  
Wastewater Management ◽  
Water And Sanitation ◽  
Sanitation Services ◽  
New Policies

Abstract Water and sanitation management faces major challenges due to the rapid urban growth of metropolitan areas and the resulting pressure on water resources. Metropolitan areas often combine formal and informal water and sanitation services and regularly face shortages, leakages, and other situations involving risk to users and the environment. This work presents an integrated approach for the development and implementation of a Water and Sanitation Safety Plan (WSSP) for metropolitan areas, especially in developing countries. The plan allows for the assessment of all the risks associated with the components of the urban water cycle by means of a semi-quantitative approach. In the case study described, the overall risk estimated was 37.2% (44.0 and 30.3% for the drinking water supply and sanitation sub-systems, respectively). Highest risk values were obtained for components of water treatment (53.0%) and wastewater treatment (51.7%). Our assessment took into account both formal and informal sanitation components of the water and wastewater management cycle and included a multi-institutional analysis of the entire system. Results obtained may contribute to establishing new policies and guidelines for the protection of public health and the local environment in our case study and other areas of the region with similar contexts and comparable institutional settings.

Assessment of the Impact of COVID on Water and Sanitation Utilities in Latin America and the Caribbean

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nils Janson ◽  
Laura Bulbena
Keyword(s):  
Latin American ◽  
Water Utilities ◽  
Water And Sanitation ◽  
Health Crisis ◽  
Sanitation Services ◽  
Current Health ◽  
Provision Of Services ◽  
The Caribbean ◽  
Adequate Provision ◽  
The Impact

Due to the current health crisis caused by COVID-19, the Water Utilities that provide Water and Sanitation services have seen their financial capacity affected to ensure the adequate provision of services, linked among other factors to reductions in their operating revenues and collections related to the temporary exemption from the payment of water and sanitation services for some users, deferral of bill payments, freezing of tariffs, reduction of the collection rate and prohibition of cutting services, among others. This document provides an assessment of the impact of COVID-19 on finances and operations of some Water Utilities in Latin American and the Caribbean.

Diversity and Integration in Private International Law

2019 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
South America ◽  
International Law ◽  
Value Systems ◽  
Private International Law ◽  
Diverse Range ◽  
Cross Border ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Depth Analysis ◽  
And Shifts ◽  
Substantive Law

This book opens a cross-regional dialogue and shifts the Eurocentric discussion on diversity and integration to a more inclusive engagement with South America in private international law issues. It promotes a contemporary vision of private international law as a discipline enabling legal interconnectivity, with the potential to transcend its disciplinary boundaries to further promote the reality of cross-border integration, with its focus on the ever-increasing cross-border mobility of individuals. Private international law embraces legal diversity and pluralism. Different legal traditions continue to meet, interact and integrate in different forms, at the national, regional and international levels. Different systems of substantive law couple with divergent systems of private international law (designed to accommodate the former in cross-border situations). This complex legal landscape impacts individuals and families in cross-border scenarios, and international commerce broadly conceived. Private international law methodologies and techniques offer means for the coordination of this constellation of legal orders and value systems in cross-border situations. Bringing together world-renowned academics and experienced private international lawyers from a wide range of jurisdictions in Europe and South America, this edited collection focuses on the connective capabilities of private international law in bridging and balancing legal diversity as a corollary for the development of integration. The book provides in-depth analysis of the role of private international law in dealing with legal diversity across a diverse range of topics and jurisdictions.

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