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Rural and Urban Water Issues in Africa

Poverty and Water

Africa faces huge challenges with multiple issues that adversely affect public health. One major challenge is the ability for both rural and urban Africans to access a clean water supply. There are limited sources of water available to provide clean drinking water to the entire population of Africa. Surface water sources are often highly polluted, and infrastructure to pipe water from fresh, clean sources to arid areas is too costly of an endeavor. According to the WHO (2006), only 59% of the world's population had access to adequate sanitation systems. Not only is there poor access to readily accessible drinking water, even when water is available in these small towns, there are risks of contamination due to several factors.

Groundwater is the best resource to tap to provide clean water to the majority of areas in Africa, especially rural Africa, and groundwater has the benefit of being naturally protected from bacterial contamination and is a reliable source during droughts. However, the high costs associated with drilling for water, present challenges that limit tapping the resource. Groundwater is not a fail-safe resource, either, when it comes to providing clean water. There may be contamination of the water with heavy metals, and bacteria may be introduced by leaking septic systems or contaminated wells. For these reasons, it is important that groundwater be monitored frequently, which is costly and requires technical abilities. But most of the people didn't test the water quality as often as is necessary, and lack of education among the people utilizing the water source leads them to believe that as long as they are getting water from a well, it is safe.

The implications of lack of clean water and access to adequate sanitation are widespread. Young children die from dehydration and malnutrition, results of suffering from diarrheal illnesses that could be prevented by clean water and good hygiene. Diseases such as cholera are spread rampantly during the wet season.They are also at an increased risk for violence since they travel such great distances from their villages on a daily basis, and are even at risk when they must go to the edge of the village to find a private place to relieve themselves. 

Personal Reflection
I've ever heard from someone ( I forgot who ) he said that this lack of water problem of Africa was because of some people use the water to watering drugs or opium, (if I'm not mistaken) and they got a lot of advantages for themselves. In this case, (if it was truly right) I think the government should stop this act and take the best action to get rid of this problem.. Some country have already helped anyway, so the government should use the help as good as possible, if not, maybe the disease could spread throughout the world and it can contaminate all the water resources as well and by that we all know that we could ended up dehydrated. Overall, I hope government could solve the problem as soon as possible, they're your citizen anyway..