World to Focus on Improved Sanitation in 2008

The city of just over one million people in the southwestern Ural Mountains has a well developed oil and petrochemicals industry, low unemployment, and income levels 20 percent higher than the Russian average.

The Russian city of Ufa is upgrading its wastewater treatment. (Photo by Anders Larsson)

But Ufa, the capital of the Republic of Bashkortostan, struggles with outdated and incomplete wastewater treatment facilities. As a result, some 15 percent of the city's sewage is discharged without proper disinfection into the Belaya River, whose waters flow into the Kama River, a tributary of the Volga.

Ufa's wastewater facilities were designed in the late 1960s and intended to be constructed in three stages. The first stage was completed in 1974, but the second only became operational in 1987 and the economic difficulties of the 1990s meant the final stage was not completed at all.

Now, the municipal water utility UfaVodocanal is seeking to finish the work while at the same time reducing the environmental impact of the wastewater treatment process.

With this goal in mind, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, EBRD, has agreed to lend the utility 500 million roubles (€15 million or US$20.4 million) over the next 13 years so that it can invest in cleaner and more energy efficient technology.

The loan will enable UfaVodocanal to treat sewage with ultraviolet disinfection technology and purchase methane tanks. These tanks will capture biological gas from the sewage and the gas will be burned off to produce heat for UfaVodocanal's own use.

"The ultraviolet technology will enable the utility to significantly reduce the levels of untreated sewage discharged into the Belaya River," UfaVodocanal Director Viacheslav Semenovich Gordienko.

Bridge over the Belaya River in Ufa, Russia (Photo courtesy City of Ufa)

"This project will give a boost to the economy of the city and is key in improving environmental standards," said Ufa Mayor Pavel Rurikovich Kachkaev.

"What makes this project special is its strong focus on the environment. This is about more than just economic benefits and reducing costs and it shows how forward-looking the utility's management team and the local community are," explains the EBRD's Oxana Selska, who works as a senior banker in the Municipal and Environmental Infrastructure team.

"Although householders will see their tariffs increase as a result of the reforms, issues of affordability for low-income groups are taken into account and the price adjustments will be made gradually," she adds.

"Most of the water and wastewater utilities that the EBRD deals with in Russia are starting from a low point in terms of compliance with EU environmental standards," says Selska.

"The fact that the utility can't meet EU standards today shouldn't prevent the EBRD from investing: we can make an important start and get the process underway. We must not forget that cities in EU countries had a long time to adjust to these standards and were often helped by big investment grants from the European Union."

Other cities and rural areas around the world are expected to undertake sanitation improvements this year to coordinate with the United Nations Year of Sanitation 2008.

The international year aims to highlight the need for urgent action on behalf of the more than 40 percent of the world's population who continue to live without improved sanitation.

A girl sits at the edge of a road beside a stream filled with raw sewage, near her home in Baghdad, Iraq. (Photo by Shehzad Noorani courtesy UNICEF)

"Sanitation is a problem that people are often shy to discuss, and it is swept under the carpet with a disastrous global impact on health and social development," said Jose Antonio Ocampo, UN Under-Secretary-General for UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs at UN Headquarters in New York. "The International Year of Sanitation will help put the spotlight on this silent humanitarian crisis."

The UN Childrens Fund, UNICEF, Tuesday officially welcomed the first day of the International Year of Sanitation 2008, saying that lack of proper sanitation contributes to the deaths of thousands of women and children every day from largely preventable causes.

Though more than 1.2 billion people worldwide have gained access to improved sanitation between 1990 and 2004, an estimated 2.6 billion people - including 980 million children - have yet to be reached.

"Children are especially vulnerable to diseases caused by the lack of proper sanitation," says UNICEF Executive Director Ann Veneman. "Poor sanitation, hygiene and unsafe water claim the lives of an estimated over 1.5 million children under the age of five every year."

The International Year of Sanitation 2008 was established by the UN General Assembly in December 2006 to accelerate progress towards meeting the Millennium Development Goal of reducing by half the proportion of people living without access to improved sanitation by 2015.

Progress on sanitation will contribute to the achievement of all the Millennium Development Goals, MDG.

A World Health Organization, report issued Tuesday finds that while coverage has been advancing in many countries, recent estimates consistently show the sanitation component of the MDG sanitation target to be off-track, with "a projected shortfall of 550 million people in 2015 from target achievement."

The estimated total spending, excluding program costs, required in developing countries to meet the sanitation component of the MDG target is US$ 142 billion, the World Health Organization report calculates. This translates to per-capita spending of US$ 28 for sanitation.

Annually, this translates to roughly US$ 4 billion for water supply and US$ 14 for sanitation, an annual combined total of US$ 18 billion.

Their results compare with previous estimates of the annual investment costs of increasing coverage to meet the water and sanitation MDG target, which have been variously estimated at US$ 9 billion, US$ 11.3 billion, US$ 18 billion and US$ 30 billion.

"Given the lack of up-to-date data on actual combined spending by governments and households on water supply and sanitation in developing countries, it is not possible to estimate the current financing gap at the global level," according to authors Guy Hutton of the World Bank's Water and Sanitation Program in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, and Jamie Bartram of the World Health Organization in Geneva, Switzerland.

Improved sanitation includes clean, safe toilets, wastewater management and hygiene promotion, all of which prevent the transfer of pathogens in human waste. When not treated safely, this waste adversely impacts health and impedes social and economic development.

The International Year of Sanitation will include major regional conferences on sanitation to share best practices and help accelerate progress, including those that focus on school sanitation.

It will also help encourage public and private partnerships, to help tap into the comparative strengths of each sector, advocate and raise awareness on sanitation, leverage additional funding, and develop country-level plans of action.

Many activities and events are planned both inside and outside the United Nations for Sanitation and Hygiene Week March 15 to 21 and World Water Day on March 22.

Copyright Environment News Service (ENS) 2007. All rights reserved.