Access
Only about 47% of the Mozambican population has access to an improved water source, and only 17% has access to adequate sanitation. Consequences on living conditions are multiple, ranging from poor health to lower productivity due to the time needed to fetch water.
Figures on access are controversial. For example, the WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Program for Water Supply and Sanitation estimates access to an improved source of water supply at 77% in urban areas and 29% in rural areas as of 2010. These figures are based primarily on data from the 2003 Demographic and Health Survey. However, the Ministry of Public Works uses the water access figures of 38% in urban areas and 40% in rural areas. The numbers for rural access are derived from the number of boreholes and an estimated average number of households using a borehole.
| Urban (38% of the population) |
Rural (62% of the population) |
Total | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Water | Broad definition | 77% | 29% | 47% |
| House connections | not available | not available | not available | |
| Sanitation | Broad definition | 38% | 5% | 18% |
| Sewerage | not available | not available | not available |
Source: Joint Monitoring Program for Water Supply and Sanitation of WHO and UNICEF
There are also conflicting figures about what are the target figures to meet the MDGs for water and sanitation by 2015. According to a World Bank document it means urban access to water increasing to 78% and rural access increasing to 56%. However, according to a MDG status report it means increasing access to 70% in both urban and rural areas.
Read more about this topic: Water Supply And Sanitation In Mozambique
Famous quotes containing the word access:
“Make thick my blood,
Stop up th’ access and passage to remorse,
That no compunctious visitings of nature
Shake my fell purpose.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“Knowledge in the form of an informational commodity indispensable to productive power is already, and will continue to be, a major—perhaps the major—stake in the worldwide competition for power. It is conceivable that the nation-states will one day fight for control of information, just as they battled in the past for control over territory, and afterwards for control over access to and exploitation of raw materials and cheap labor.”
—Jean François Lyotard (b. 1924)
“Whilst the rights of all as persons are equal, in virtue of their access to reason, their rights in property are very unequal. One man owns his clothes, and another owns a country.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)