Raw Water anybody?

[Macca]

Goat's Head Soup! As kids we would often drink from streams, and after a day making a dam, go home for tea, never washed our hands, and somehow survived. I could be wrong but I do think a bit of muck is probably healthier than having everything sanitised as it seems to be for kids these days

I sort of agree but basic fieldcraft is you don't do it as if it does make you sick you are screwed if you are far from help. Or supposed to be helping to man the machine gun Even if you are not, getting tapeworms is worth avoiding.

[walpurgis]

http://survivaltopics.com/that-water...safe-to-drink/

[Pigmy Pony]

I stand corrected! After reading that, now I feel sick-not as ill as that donkey though, he must have been drinking gallons to get like that

[Macca]

I stand corrected! After reading that, now I feel sick-not as ill as that donkey though, he must have been drinking gallons to get like that

Spaniards probably did for him.

[Sherwood]

I have to express a little concern with the flippancy of some of the postings on this thread. OK, the original post was intended as a light-hearted mockery of new age "health fads". However, I think one needs to take seriously the global problem of water borne diseases and the devastating effects on poor vulnerable populations. Great progress has been made worldwide over the last decade in reducing diarrhoeal mortality rates, but globally 1.4 million people still die from diarrhoea each each, mostly children and infants. Although, effective treatments are available to treat diarrhoea and to rehydrate those affected, these are often beyond the means of households in the developing world, the majority of which survive on close to $1 dollar per day or less. Poor health infrastructure means that mothers may have to walk many hours carrying their very sick children to the nearest functioning health clinic by which time little can be done to save the child. It is still shocking to me to visit a rural health facility where an infant has just died from a water borne illness and to witness the devastation of the families affected and indeed the facility staff. Unfortunately, I have witnessed this too many times.

With global warning and increased environmental pollution and degradation, there is a very real chance that recent progress in reducing global diarrhoeal morbidity and mortality may be reversed, and that more parts of the world experience severe water shortages. There is very little that individual households can do to escape the burden of water born diseases. Their mobility is limited, and they often survive on marginal holdings in remote rural areas. Water collection is typically delegated to children, often girls, who spend hours walking to the nearest (often polluted) water source. Households that migrate to urban areas in search of work often find themselves living in slums with poor sewage and sanitation, and exposed to an array of water borne diseases not least cholera, typhoid and dysentery. One of the best investments in development is support for safe and sustainable water supplies such as boreholes and hand pumps. Communities are more than willing to commit resources to such initiatives such as labour and building materials, and once built are committed to ensuring the pumps are well maintained.

I understand that it is difficult for those living in Europe and the developed world to appreciate how lives are shaped by the need to spend so much time and effort collecting water and fuel for cooking, and the catastrophic efforts of a major health event on household incomes. It is not unusual for a single health episode to account for 40% of a poor households monthly income and to force the sale of assets such as livestock or drive people to predatory money lenders. These problems are very real though and should be taken seriously.

Geoff

[walpurgis]

I think that may have killed the thread.

[Landloper]

'One of the best investments in development is support for safe and sustainable water supplies such as boreholes and hand pumps. Communities are more than willing to commit resources to such initiatives such as labour and building materials, and once built are committed to ensuring the pumps are well maintained.'

Setting aside whether or not we in this country should spend money on providing basic infrastructures for sovereign states that have their own revenues, I'm somewhat puzzled because the solutions seem to be relatively cheap. How can it be that despite decades of aid amounting to billions of pounds from this country alone, these states still unable to end the problems you mention? Is it that no matter how much aid is sent nothing much changes because the money is usurped by the rich of the recipient states and never reaches the people it is intended to help? Or is it because aid comes with so many strings attached that any good it may do is swiftly undone? Or perhaps a combination of both?

At the moment it is reckoned that £5,000 [1] is the cost of ensuring that an African community [presumably they mean by 'community' a village] can have clean water to drink, cook, and wash with. E.G. £5 million will cover a thousand villages. During 2004/2005 the UK donated £883 [2] million through the DFID, by 2006/7 that figure had risen to £1,265 million [3]. Yet as each year passes we are told that things are worsening and that more of our money needs to sent abroad.

Zimbabwe, for example, had a relatively well developed urban water system on independence, with things being rather more mixed in the countryside. The nation made good progress in addressing the challenge and significant improvements were made. This progress was reversed partly because of Mugabe's political Land Reform policies, partly because the ruling Zanu PF have asset stripped so much of their country's resources for personal gain, partly because of population growth [itself in part a consequence of improved water and sanitation provision]. Now Zimbabwe is experiencing a deterioration in water quality and sanitation provision despite all the monies disbursed to her in aid, and despite the country's own efforts to improve matters.

In 2008 Zimbabwe was estimated to be losing some $5 million in corruption each day. That's around 3.7 million pounds a day - that's a lot of wells, pumps, sanitation equipment, and public health education lost to the crooks that run that country.



[1 Source: Water Aid UK]
[2 Source: Dept for International Development (DFID)]
[3 Source: DFID]

[walpurgis]

Ah. I see. Not sure what I'm supposed to do with this information.

[Sherwood]

It was not my intention to kill the thread, only to stress the huge burden of, largely preventable, disease attributable to poor water and sanitation globally.

In response to John's points:

a) Yes there is widespread corruption in Africa and other parts of the developing world, and yes, money given for health and development is siphoned off at many levels, from the top down to the bottom. In the past, donors were not particularly effective in preventing or minimising "leakages" but DFID and other donors are increasingly working on improving governance, accountability and transparency and have actually withdrawn or suspended development funding where corruption has been detected or conditionalities were not met.

b) Is development funding effective? Yes it can be, and since 2000, global deaths from diarrhoea have more than halved. However, the global costs of meeting even basic health needs in the developing world are high, and beyond the revenue generating potential of most poor countries. Recent estimates produced for the UN Sustainable Development Goals suggest a basic health package would cost around $100 per capita per annum to provide: a figure way beyond the means of many countries. The figures you quote for water supply works are misleading and omit important indirect and overhead costs. Costs also vary according to remoteness and local geology and how deep a borehole is required to tap water. Dry boreholes also need to be factored into costs. The bottom line is that globally, improved water and sanitation requires a sustained global investment of many billions of dollars per annum over many years.

c) Should we be paying for development? Well, disregarding any arguments about the degree to which the developed world has exploited the developing world and contributed to its current problems, the question of self interest is relevant. Poverty is a breeding ground for unrest, and increasingly problems in remote parts of the world have the potential to affect the developing world. Terrorism, ebola, mass uncontrolled mass migrations are factors that affect us all wherever we happen to live. Quite aside from any moral or humanitarian considerations, unless we address the causes of poverty and underdevelopment, and begin to improve the lives of the world's poorest, these global hazards will become all the more acute.

I should add that I speak from a relatively informed perspective rather than as some naive dreamer. I've worked in around 30 countries, including long term postings in some of the poorest and most fragile states. I have served as an adviser to health ministries and also worked as team leader on some major health projects funded by bilateral and multilateral agencies. Yes, it drives me crazy when I see resources wasted or misused but for me the challenge is to do development smarter rather than give up because it's difficult. Oh, and don't get me started on Mugabe and other monsters like him....

Geoff

[Haselsh1]

I once bought some powdered water but couldn't find anything to dilute it with.