Abstract
In developing countries, the drinking water supply is still an open issue. In sub-Saharan Africa, only 68% of the population has access to improved sources of drinking water. Moreover, some regions are affected by geogenic contaminants (e.g., fluoride and arsenic) and the lack of access to sanitation facilities and hygiene practices causes high microbiological contamination of drinking water in the supply chain. The Water Safety Plan (WSP) approach introduced by the World Health Organisation (WHO) in 2004 is now under development in several developing countries in order to face up to these issues. The WSP approach was elaborated within two cooperation projects implemented in rural areas of Burkina Faso and Senegal by two Italian NGOs (Non-Governmental Organisations). In order to evaluate its sustainability, a questionnaire based on five different sustainability elements and a cost and time consumption evaluation were carried out and applied in both the case studies. Results demonstrated that the questionnaire can provide a useful and interesting overview regarding the sustainability of the WSP; however, further surveys in the field are recommended for gathering more information. Time and costs related to the WSP elaboration, implementation, and management were demonstrated not to be negligible and above all strongly dependent on water quality and the water supply system complexity.
Highlights
In 2000 the member States of the United Nations signed the so-called Millennium Declaration, which later gave rise to eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)
This paper aims at presenting two complementary methodologies that can be used in order to evaluate the sustainability of Water Safety Plans (WSPs): The use of a questionnaire is based on five different sustainability elements, to be addressed to the main stakeholders involved in the WSP
In Senegal, the WSP team was composed of the members of the different water suppliers, who had major technical competencies and expertise compared to the inhabitants of Fingla and Diarra villages in Burkina Faso
Summary
In 2000 the member States of the United Nations signed the so-called Millennium Declaration, which later gave rise to eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Goal 7, to ensure environmental sustainability, included a target (7c) that challenged the global community to halve the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation by 2015. According to the last update (2015), the worldwide drinking water coverage relying on improved sources is 91% (3% above the MDG target). 663 million people still relied on unimproved or surface drinking water sources [1]. Only 68% of the population has access to improved drinking water sources, with a strong disparity between urban (87%) and rural (56%) areas. Even worse the access to improved sanitation facilities reaches only 30% of the people: The percentage increases up to 40% in urban areas, whilst it decreases to 23% in rural areas [1]
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