Accessing climate finance for sustainable water, sanitation and hygiene services in Mozambique

With climate change already affecting the world’s poorest, its associated weather impacts including increased flooding, landslides and drought pose a serious threat to global progress on providing universal water, sanitation and hygiene, WaterAid warned as the UN Climate Change Conference opened in Bonn.

Ensuring access to clean drinking water, decent toilets and good hygiene is essential to reduce the impact of droughts and floods, to prevent outbreaks of disease and to help communities rebuild more quickly.

However, climate change adaptation programmes are not including sufficient support for co-ordination and planning for water, sanitation and hygiene, leaving the world’s poorest people even more vulnerable to both natural disasters and to the creeping impact of increasing drought and erratic weather events.

A new WaterAid report focused on Mozambique’s access to climate finance points out that as the 31st most climate-vulnerable country in the world, Mozambique is expected to be severely affected and is already paying the price. The cost of climate-related disasters to the national economy is an estimated $US1.74 billion over the period 1980-2003 – far less than the $147 million the country has received in climate finance between 2003 and 2016. You can view the full report here.

Though Mozambique is making progress on adaptation programmes, at present only 47.3% of the country’s population have access to clean water and 23.6% to basic toilets, with spending on water, sanitation and hygiene programmes falling. To turn this round Mozambique, and many other developing countries need support to get to grips with the challenges of a warming world so resources can reach those communities already struggling.

Jonathan Farr, WaterAid Senior Policy Analyst on Water Security and Climate Change, said:

“The injustice of climate change is that the people paying the price for its worst effects are those who have done least to cause it. Wealthy countries have pledged $100 billion to help developing countries cope — now we must clear the path for communities already on the front line to access that funding. “We know that people cannot adapt to climate change without access to sustainable water, sanitation and hygiene services that are built to last. In the wake of increasingly severe climate impacts, such as this year’s hurricanes and flooding in the Americas and South Asia, access to clean water, decent toilets and hygiene are among the first things people need. “WaterAid is calling for better coordination across international, national, and local levels to make sure the voices of those who are most in need are heard by national governments and international institutions. It is vital that we start to see international agreements match the reality on the ground.”

Original source and full report: WaterAid.
Posted on 31 October 2017