This is a century of urban transition. It is estimated that by 2020, nearly 60 per cent of the world’s population will live in urban areas, the growth predominantly taking place in developing countries and in peri-urban settlements housing the urban poor. This rapid and undirected urban growth has brought with it increased demand for basic services and poses three key challenges to sustainable urban development: the social challenge of equitable allocation among competing sectors, ensuring adequate access to safe water and basic sanitation by the urban poor; the environmental challenge of protecting freshwater sources from growing volumes of urban wastes; and the financing challenge of mobilizing resources to meet the growing cost of water provision from ever distant and degraded sources.

Experience has shown that investments in safe drinking water supply and sanitation , unless properly directed, do not necessarily lead to better services for the urban poor. Few local governments in the developing world, however, have a clearly defined urban development policy, not to speak of a policy for basic infrastructure and services in informal settlements. In most cases, the thriving informal water market is not regulated nor supported, and the poor end up paying more for water of dubious quality. Local governments also lack the capacity to play their role in protecting water quality from pollution by local commercial and industrial establishments.

Water delivery in some urban settings depends directly on national power supply, and rationing or frequent blackouts disrupt this supply of water. Different cities/towns still rely on diesel pumps for their water delivery. The recent rapid rise of oil prices has had direct consequences on the price of water, making this basic commodity less accessible to the urban poor. In some cases, the water pumping stations have been closed down for lack of resources to cover operational costs. The cost of fuel also affects the transport of water from the source to the end user. It is therefore evident that the type of energy and the way it is used considerably affects the final cost and the availability of water and sanitation services to the end user.

In addition, global warming and other related climate changes are likely to profoundly affect water, and sanitation service provision and health in human settlements. Water resources management, which will be particularly affected, will most certainly result in negative health-related impacts such as increased incidence of water related diseases due to ground and surface water pollution and reduced water flows. There will be greater risks of vector-borne diseases such as malaria and dengue fever due to localized flooding in addition to major disruptions in sanitation service provision. Urgent action is, therefore, required to initiate structured adaptation interventions at the local level and to build climate-related capacity in the water and sanitation sector to mitigate the serious health consequences of climate change that will inevitably be felt at the community level.

The UN-HABITAT Response