An estimated one out of two jobs globally are dependent on water, meaning that shortages and lack of access are likely to limit economic growth in the coming decades, the United Nations said yesterday.
About 1.5 billion people – half the world’s workers – are employed in industries heavily dependent on water, most of them in farming, fisheries and forestry, the UN World Water Development Report 2016 said.
“There is a direct effect on jobs worldwide if there are disruptions in water supply through natural causes, such as droughts, or if water doesn’t get to communities because of infrastructure problems,” said Richard Connor, the report’s editor-in-chief.
Research has shown investment in small-scale projects providing access to safe water and basic sanitation in Africa could offer a return equivalent to almost five per cent of the continent’s economic output, the report said.
In the US, every $1 million invested in the country’s water supply and treatment infrastructure generates between 10 and 20 additional jobs, according to the report.
Countries are not getting the economic benefits of their working population because people are spending so much of their money on water
“Whether it’s a water treatment facility or a system to bring water to fields to irrigate, you’re not just funding that project,” Connor told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
“You’re actually creating a multiplier effect: jobs are being created because water becomes available.”
Fleur Anderson, global head of campaigns at charity Water Aid, said the high cost of water in many developing countries also affects jobs and economic choices.
In Papua New Guinea, for example, poor people have to spend 54 per cent of their day’s earnings to buy 50 litres of water, the amount the World Health Organisation says a person needs every day for domestic use and to maintain health and hygiene.
This compares with as little as 0.1 per cent of the income of someone earning the minimum wage in Britain.
“It means countries are not getting the economic benefits of their working population because people are spending so much of their money on water,” Anderson said.
Demand for water is expected to increase by 2050 as the world’s population is forecast to grow by one-third to more than nine billion, according to the UN.
This in turn will lead to a 70 per cent increase in demand for food, putting more pressure on water through farming, which is already the biggest consumer of water. As climate change contributes to rising sea levels and extreme weather, at least one in four people will live in a country with chronic or recurring shortages of fresh water by 2050, the UN estimates, making it more important to focus on expanding rainwater harvesting and recycling wastewater.
Furthermore, Connor said funding for projects was still often based on “investment in pumps and pipes” rather than a more holistic view, taking into account water’s key role in building a sustainable economy as part of the new global development goals.
More investment in renewable energy such as solar and wind, which use very little water, is also crucial in reducing demand for water, Connor said.
The world’s most expensive places to buy water
Papua New Guinea is the most difficult and expensive place in the world to access clean water, forcing the poor to spend more than half their income on this essential resource, a charity has said.
Some 650 million people do not have access to clean water, and often have to make do with much less than the 50 litres per person per day the World Health Organisation says is necessary for domestic use and to maintain health and hygiene, Water Aid said.
Lack of access to an affordable, convenient source of clean water is one of the biggest barriers to escaping a life of poverty and disease, the charity said in its report State of the World’s Water 2016.
An estimated three out of four jobs globally are dependent on water, meaning that shortages and lack of access are likely to limit economic growth in the coming decades, according to a United Nations report, also released on yesterday.
Below are some facts about the cost of water and access to it.
• In Papua New Guinea’s capital Port Moresby, it costs a poor person 54 per cent of a day’s earnings to buy from a delivery service the minimum 50 litres of water recommended by the World Health Organisation.
• In Madagascar’s capital Antananarivo, the cost of buying 50 litres of water from a truck is 45 per cent of a person’s daily pay, while in Ghana’s capital Accra it is 25 per cent.
• In Mozambique, families relying on black-market vendors will spend up to 100 times as much on water as those reached by government-subsidised tapstands.
• Papua New Guinea, Equatorial Guinea and Angola have the lowest percentage of households with access to clean water in the world.
• In 16 countries, some 40 per cent or more of the population do not have access to clean water.
• Cambodia, Mali, Laos and Ethiopia have made the greatest improvement in increasing access to water.
• Despite much progress, inequalities persist even in nations that have made great strides, the poorest often paying the highest percentage of their income on water.
• A British person earning the minimum wage spends 0.1 per cent of a day’s pay on 50 litres of water from an official piped supply. Average use is about 150 litres per person, per day.
Sources: Water Aid, United Nations