Drinking water in developing countries

• Conclusions
• Recommendations
• Response of the Minister

The Court of Audit has investigated how the Minister for Development Cooperation intends to provide clean drinking water to 50 million people in developing countries who currently do not have access to safe water. The United Nations (UN) agreed eight Millennium Goals in 2000 that have to be achieved by 2015. One aim of the seventh Millennium Goal (to ensure environmental sustainability) is to halve the number of people who do not have access to safe drinking water by 2015 in comparison with 1990. In 2005, the Dutch Minister for Development Cooperation promised that the Netherlands would provide sustainable drinking water to 50 million people. At the time, this '50 million target' represented about 1/12 the total number of people who would gain access to drinking water as part of Millennium Goal 7.

Conclusions

The promise to provide sustainable drinking water to 50 million people has led to concrete action in the countries with which the Netherlands has a development relationship. However, improvements can still be made in some areas.

The 50 million target is not concrete enough and the implementers are not entirely sure what is expected of them. Many different interpretations are possible, for example, of the term sustainable. The uncertainty about the 50 million target is exacerbated by the additional conditions that the Minister has set. The additional conditions, too, have not been defined properly. Furthermore, the Minister has not fully thought out all the conditions. One condition is that the measures must be targeted at the poor or poorest people, for example, but some measures are not sustainable unless they are paid for by the users.

Owing to the lack of clearly defined targets and an integrated policy framework it is not always clear whether the activities are sustainable or satisfy the additional conditions. It is therefore difficult for the Ministry to monitor the progress made and determine whether 50 million is a feasible target or not. Progress monitoring is also difficult because base line measurements were not always taken in the regions in which the projects are being carried out.

We also found problems in the Ministry's management of the achievement of the target. There is no result-based action plan that clearly describes what must be done in each country, and when, in order to achieve the target. It is known, however, that half of the people concerned must be in Africa. We also found that communication between the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the embassies in the partner countries was open to improvement.

Recommendations

We recommend that the Minister for Development Cooperation justify and operationalise the 50 million target and manage by results in order to achieve it. For implementation and management purposes, a critical look should be taken at what actually has to be done to provide 50 million people with access to drinking water and to take decisions. We also recommend that a record be kept of the type of actions that will help achieve the target, base-line measurements be taken at the start of a project and a monitoring system be developed to track progress. Finally, we recommend that the Minister clearly disclose the expenditure incurred for the 50 million target in the budget and the annual report.

Response of the Minister

The Minister for Development Cooperation replied that he had since informed the House of Representatives about the policy framework and its implementation and that the framework would be applied in future annual reports. He also noted that, in accordance with international agreements, development cooperation should meet demand from the developing countries themselves. A detailed action plan was therefore inappropriate but the Minister would implement demand-driven management within the existing development cooperation policy.