House Approves Bill Increasing Access to Safe Water to Developing Countries

On November 7, the House approved, 319-34, a bill (H.R. 1973) that would authorize assistance to provide safe water and sanitation to people in developing countries.

Sponsored by Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR), the Senator Paul Simon Water for the Poor Act contains a number of findings, including:

• Over 1.1 billion people in the world lack access to safe drinking water;
• Lack of access to safe drinking water, inadequate sanitation, and poor hygiene practices are directly responsible for the vast majority of diarrheal diseases, which kill over two million children each year;
• In the poorest countries of the world, one out of every five children dies from a preventable, water-related disease;
• Increasing access to safe water and sanitation advances efforts toward other development objectives, such as fighting poverty and hunger, promoting primary education and gender equality, reducing child mortality, promoting environmental stability, improving the lives of slum dwellers, and strengthening national security; and
• Because women and girls in developing countries are often the carriers of water, lack of access to safe water and sanitation disproportionately affects women and limits their opportunities at education, livelihood, and financial independence.

H.R. 1973 would provide assistance to expand affordable and equitable access to safe water and sanitation for underserved populations; support the design, construction, maintenance, upkeep, repair, and operation of water delivery and sanitation systems; improve the safety and reliability of water supplies, including environmental management; and improve the capacity of recipient governments and local communities, including capacity-building programs for improved water resource management. The measure also would require the State Department to develop a strategy to further the foreign assistance objective of providing affordable and equitable access to safe water and sanitation in developing countries.

Rep. Ted Poe (R-TX) explained that the bill “amends the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 by broadening the areas of development assistance objectives to include improved access to safe water and sanitation. This act requires the Secretary of State to develop a strategy in consultation with the administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development to carry out this objective. The strategy called for in this important legislation requires the Secretary of State to assess the adequacy of current activities, define measurable objectives as stipulated by this legislation and assess the level of funding needed to meet them, and improve the coordination and integration of water and sanitation programs provided by the United States with the water and sanitation assistance programs of other donor countries and institutions.”

Rep. Blumenauer stated, “Water and sanitation is crucial because it is a necessary part of every one of our foreign assistance objectives,” adding, “Access to water empowers women and girls who in many places are unable to get an education or hold a job because they have to spend hours walking to fetch water for their families. They are at risk in many places of attacks as they leave the village in search of safe water, and hours of dangerous toil means school is less likely or even impossible.” He also noted that the bill “is an opportunity, not to create vast new programs and bet on new technology, but to refocus our foreign assistance efforts on a comprehensive, strategic series of investments. These are simple commonsense steps the world fully understands, which will make a difference in people’s lives, help transform their communities while building real local capacity for sustainable development.”