More aid for safe drinking water and sanitation

Water and Sanitation gets green light in Federal Budget

The Federal Government is to be congratulated for keeping its commitment to substantially increase allocations to safe drinking water and sanitation in the international aid budget. The $3.8 billion aid budget includes an allocation of $165 million for safe drinking water and sanitation for 2009/10.

“WaterAid is very pleased to see significant increases in spending on safe drinking water and sanitation. The global financial crisis impacts most on the poor in developing countries and we know that investing in water and sanitation is key to reducing poverty”, said Adam Laidlaw, WaterAid Australia CEO.

“However we encourage the Government to reaffirm its long term commitment to the sector beyond 2011 in future budgets.”

Last year the Federal Government launched a Water and Sanitation Initiative which will invest an additional $300m in water and sanitation between 2008 and 2011.

This is the first step in appropriately prioritising water and sanitation in the aid program and further budget increases will be needed to meet Australia’s fair share of the funding needed to reach the water and sanitation Millennium Development Goal targets.

"Australia needs to continue to increase the priority given to safe drinking water and sanitation in the aid program”, said Laidlaw.

“While these increases in safe drinking water and sanitation funding are welcome, currently this sector receives much less funding than other inter-related areas of development, such as health and education.” It is clear that still greater investment is needed in water and sanitation initiatives when the lack of access to these basic services accounts for 28% of all under-five deaths (child mortality MDG Goal 4) in the world each year, mainly as a result of diarrhoea.

“Diarrhoea accounts for more under-five child deaths than malaria, HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis combined”, said Laidlaw.

For all media enquiries/interviews please contact James Wicken at james.wicken@wateraid.org.au or call him on 03 9872 1742