Identifying factors of restricted accessing clean water in developing countries

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Water is becoming a valuable resource in recent years. The demand of water has increased since over the past decade because of the growing population. This demand will lead to a difficulty accessing water. This essay will find and discuss the reasons of a lack of access to the clean water in developing countries. It will be argued that a political issue may become the main cause for restricted access of water in the third world.

The first reason insufficient water supply is caused by water’s privatisation. The concept of privatisation leads to a monopoly practice because the authoritative control to manage water is delegated by the government to commercial institutions. These institutions make a profit by charging fees for a water supply. According to Mukheibir (2010), privatisation creates a barrier between the poor and the rich due to water pricing. This situation leads to inequality for obtaining water supply because both the poor and the rich will compete to get water services and the commercial institutions will give a privilege for selected parties who can pay higher than others. As a result, the rich who have money power get wider accessing water services, while the people living in poverty are suffering from insufficient accessing water due to the privatisation.

Another cause of accessing water is a political issue. Politics influence the development of water programmes. These programmes will not well-develop, if the government cannot put a water management plan at the top of the list of political agendas. In the developing countries, government struggles with internal conflict and this conflict affect the political situation. Massoud et al. (2010) states that a long duration of internal conflict created insecurity and instability of the politic situation in Lebanon. This condition effect on the slow progress of water management plan and lead on the government’s failure to provide water access to the residents.

 Furthermore, a low-level of public participation causes a lack of access to water. Actively public participation of the public will put the government on the pressuring situation in the policy making process. Chattopadhyay & Duflo (cited in Sorenson, Morssink and Campos (2011) points out that a low-level of women’s political participation in developing countries became an obstacle to allocate budget for the development of water’s infrastructures. Consequently, government do not put capital investments on the development of water management plan at the top priority in decision making process. Thus, the infrastructures of water supply do not well-developed.

In conclusion, the reasons insufficiency accessing water have different perspectives. In one side, the privatisation creates a gap accessing water because of water pricing, so the poor living in developing countries lost their accessing water. On the other side, insecurity and instability of political condition gave effect on the progress of water development. Because the government will focus on to solve conflict rather than develop water supply plans. In addition, political issue becomes a key reason of limited access of water because the government cannot develop the infrastructure of water supply due to a lack of capital investment.

REFERENCES

Massoud, M, Al-Abady, A, Jurdi, M & Nuwayhid, I 2010, 'The challenges of sustainable access to safe drinking water in rural areas of developing countries: case of zawtar el-charkieh, Southern Lebanon', Journal of Environmental Health, vol. 72, no. 10, pp. 24-30.

Mukheibir, P 2010, 'water access, water scarcity, and climate change', environmental management, vol. 45, no. 5, pp. 1027-1039.

Sorenson, SB, Morssink, C & Campos, PA 2011, 'safe access to safe water in low income countries: water fetching in current times', Social Science & Medicine, vol. 72, no. 9, pp. 1522-1526.