AU Summit leaders urged to keep last year's promises before making new ones

Safe water and sanitation slipping back down the agenda

29 June 2009

Under-five diarrhoea mortality rate (deaths per 1,000 live births)

Read WaterAid's 2009 African Union paper – English ( PDF 395 KB)

Read WaterAid's 2009 African Union paper – French ( PDF 399 KB)

Some 780,000 children have died of diarrhoea in Africa since the last African Union Summit. Access to safe water and sanitation topped the Summit's agenda last year when Africa's leaders made a historic pledge to turn around dismal progress.

This year, as the Summit turns its attention to agriculture and food security, the international agency WaterAid is asking why reality and rhetoric don't match. On the eve of the 2009 Summit in Sirte, Libya, this week, WaterAid is calling on African leaders to turn last year's promises into action.

"Last year's Summit marked a breakthrough as African leaders raised water and sanitation to the top of the political agenda by signing the Sharm El-Sheik and eThekwini commitments* to accelerate progress towards the water and sanitation goals," said WaterAid's Laura Hucks, Policy officer. "However, we have seen little action since then, resulting in the scandalous death of over three quarters of a million children."

Two thirds of Africa's population – some 546 million people - do not have access to safe sanitation, 221 million people defecate in the open and  328 million people do not have access to a safe source of water. Failure to meet the Millennium Development Goals' water and sanitation targets will have economic costs of up to $15 billion a year and a tragic human cost given the high diarrhoea mortality rates in children under the age of five. Yet WaterAid research shows that investment levels across the continent are not currently high enough to address this challenge.

"The numbers of children dying from diarrhoea are a stark indication of the human cost of insufficient investment," said Laura Hucks, Policy Officer.

"Put simply, diarrhoea is a major health crisis facing Africa. It is the second biggest killer of under-fives, yet neither governments nor donors are paying anything like enough attention to this deadly disease. African leaders must act upon their promises made last year to help bring an end to this crisis and save the lives of thousands of children."

WaterAid is calling on African leaders to:

1. Fully implement and independently monitor the Sharm El-Sheik and eThekwini commitments on water and sanitation.
2. Work closely with international counterparts, including the G8, to strengthen a Global Framework for Action on Water and Sanitation, in order to mobilise international efforts to support African commitments.

* The leaders made specific commitments to, among others: Develop and update national policies, regulatory frameworks and programmes, and prepare national strategies and action plans for achieving the MDG targets for water and sanitation; build institutional and human resource capacity at all levels; significantly increase domestic financial resources; mobilise increased donor and other financing.

For all media enquiries, high res images or to interview a spokesperson, please contact Ann Noon, 0044 (0)207 793 4790, annnoon@wateraid.org