Water worries

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"It's not every day you find an issue where effective diplomacy and development will allow you to save millions of lives, feed the hungry, empower women, advance our national security interests, protect the environment, and demonstrate to billions of people that the United States cares, cares about you and your welfare," Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said. "Water is that issue."

In Fiscal Year 2009, the United States, primarily through USAID and the Millennium Challenge Corporation, invested about $774 million for all water sector and sanitation-related activities in 62 developing countries, according to the State Department report.

Of that amount, USAID invested more than $481 million in drinking water and sanitation-related activities. As a result of USAID investments, some 5.7 million people received improved access to safe drinking water and 1.3 million received improved access to sanitation during FY 2009, authorities said.

From 2005 to 2009, the United States invested more than $3.4 billion for all water sector and sanitation related activities, the State Department said.

U.S. efforts to improve water and sanitation access are part of a larger, integrated foreign assistance strategy that helps to build and sustain democratic, well-governed states that respond to the needs of their people, act to reduce widespread poverty, seek to cooperate with neighboring countries, and conduct themselves responsibly in the international system, the report said.

"What the United States has done is impressive," Engberg said. "But there is still a long way to go."

According to the UN, more than one in six people worldwide, abgout 894 million, do not have access to a sufficient amount of safe freshwater. Today 2.5 billion people, including almost one billion children, live without basic sanitation.

Engberg said the State Department's language was somewhat vague.

"They say they improved access to safe water and to sanitation. But what does 'improved' mean? They do not say that the drinking water is now perfectly safe," he said.

Darcey O'Callaghan of Food and Water Watch thinks the State Department's approach to water issues in the Third World lacks transparency and community orientation. While funding clean water projects with the expressed intent of fostering democracy, the U.S. is missing opportunities of letting active community-based democracy take shape, she said.

"I have been trying for years to get straight answers from USAID on the effectiveness of the dollars they are spending," O'Callaghan said. "I've filled out plenty of FOIA requests and they just ignore me."

O'Callaghan said she has not been able to get a breakdown demonstrating how much of the money actually goes to clean water for the people involved.

"Their report this year is somewhat better than in past years," she said. "But it is still high on rhetoric and low on substance. It is more of a PR tool than a report on effectiveness."

The USAID model is geared towards privatization rather than involving the community being served, she said.

"They are market driven rather than community driven," O'Callaghan said.

"But we have seen that when projects do not involve the community and are not oriented towards democracy, they fail."

O'Callaghan added that U.S. efforts do not concentrate enough on repairing existing infrastructure.

"In urban areas in sub-Saharan Africa, water system are so old or poorly made that about half the water they attempt to deliver is lost because of leaks," she explained. "If some time and money was spent on plugging the leaks, the results would be substantial."

Engberg pointed out that old and inadequate water systems are not unique to the Third World.

"Many of the cities in the U.S., especially in the East, have water systems in need of repair and overhaul," he said.

He added that some native American communities in the Southwest suffer from a lack of clean water.

Engberg said that a number of companies have developed fairly simply devices for purifying water.

"The trick is to get a sufficient number of these devices to the places and people who need them," he said.

North Americans use more water per capita than most of the rest of the world, consuming over 105 gallons per day on drinking, sanitation and cooking. In Europe, individuals use half that amount. In developing countries, a person uses an average of 2.6 gallons a day. the UN says that everyone should have between 5.2 and 13.1 gallons of water per day.

As population grows, so does the specter of a water shortage. According to the World Bank, world-wide demand for water is doubling every 21 years.

"To me, that fact says water crisis," O'Callaghan said.