Coverage and application


Then there is the big question if this hardware really is reliable or is functioning. UNICEF - WHO used the following definition in the recent Global Water Supply and Sanitation Assessment 2000 Report:
For handpumps, "functioning" was taken to mean that they operated for more than 70% of the time, with a time lag between breakdown and repair not greater than two weeks. Here we can place a question mark. Where does the population take their water from during these other 30% or two weeks breakdown time ?? Does not all positive health effect vanish when the population is forced to go back to their traditional unprotected water sources??

SLIDE

Rural water supply coverage
1990 2000 Inrease
Africa 44 % 47 % 3 %
Latin America 56 % 62 % 6 %
Asia 67 % 75 % 8 %


The same UNICEF - WHO report presented the following figures with reference to the improvements made on rural water supply coverage around the world during the last decade. In Africa the rural water supply coverage increased from 44% to 47% from the year 1990 to 2000. Thus an increase of 3% in 10 years. These figures for Latin America were 56% and 62% thus an increase of 6 % in ten years and for Asia an increase of 8 % has been reached from 67% to 75%.

In other words, things are not that easy, definitions are difficult to compare and the physical conditions differ from one country to the other. The definitions of ‘access to water' and ‘safe water' may vary from country to country. In Nicaragua for example 200 metres is used as the maximum distance to a water point.
Furthermore we can see many different strategies and policies have been used around the world.

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