Drying-up growth
The lack of clean water and basic sanitation that afflicts up to 40 per cent of the world’s population knocks at least $556bn (£317bn, €458bn) a year off the world’s potential economic growth, according to the World Health Organisation, equivalent to about 1 per cent of global gross domestic product.
Via the Financial Times. Meanwhile the NY Times reports on the noticeable hostility towards private management of water resources in Mexico City as the World Water Forum winds to an end.
Update: See 'Water for Growth and Development' by David Grey and Claudia Sadoff.
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Ironically, most "opponents" of private water provision ignore the fact that a majority of water and sewerage services in the slums and shantytowns of poor countries are provided by informal entrepreneurs. The contributions made by this "bottom-up" solution to a scarcity of water and sewerage services is not recognised in the statistics of the WHO or other global agencies.
My colleague Franklin Cudjoe, founder of Imani (a think tank in Ghana) and I discuss this in a new study - ("The reality of water provision in Africa") - which is now available online at www.sdnetwork.net.
Posted by: Kendra Okonski | Mar 21, 2006 9:23:02 AM
Here is the link to Kendra's paper mentioned above:
http://ipn.lexi.net/images/uploaded/12-441ebd948510e--waterrevolution-chapter7.pdf
Posted by: Pablo Halkyard | Mar 21, 2006 9:44:36 AM