Transforming the national water sector beyond Covid-19

BY and large, we have been blessed with water supply thanks to the location of our country as it means that we benefit from plenty of rainfall.

However, within Malaysia, there are areas that are suffering from access to clean water supply. The repeated water cuts in the Klang Valley due to illegal dumping of industrial waste in rivers have also led to disturbed life in the past few years.

Over two billion of the global population live in countries with high water stress. Realising the need for unified action globally, the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal, which was launched in 2015, has included this issue in Goal 6 with the theme of “Clean Water and Sanitation for All”.

Food and water security have also been identified as one of the Malaysia Grand Challenge by the Science, Technology and Innovation Ministry (MOSTI), launched by its minister, Khairy Jamaluddin, in January. Concurrently, the recently launched 10-10 Malaysian Science, Technology Innovation and Economy Framework (MySTIE) by the Academy of Sciences Malaysia (ASM) has also identified “water and food” as one of the 10 social economy drivers.

Last December, UN-Water held its 31st special session of the general assembly, in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. The body reiterated the urgent need for access to clean water and soap to ensure that the world population is able to come out of this pandemic safely as water is the first line of defence in a pandemic.

However, about three billion of the world’s population lack basic handwashing facilities at home.

Better water and sanitation systems must be built in order for nations to be safeguarded from being susceptible to other pandemics in the future. Countries need efficient water management systems to cope with water scarcity and food insecurity issues.

During the session, the Global Acceleration Framework was launched in order to align efforts, optimise financing and transform capacity and governance to ensure that access to clean water is available to the people of the world.

This will help meet some of the goals in the UN SDG 6 by 2030, such as improving water quality by reducing pollution, eliminating dumping and minimising release of hazardous chemicals and materials, halving the proportion of untreated wastewater and substantially increasing recycling and safe reuse of water globally.

We have also been taking steps to address this issue. The National Integrated Water Resources Management Plan published by ASM in 2016, served as a good guide for transforming the water sector in the country. It outlines various strategies and plans to be taken at national and state levels.

Recommendations include the formalisation of a governing policy to ensure balanced development in meeting water, food and energy security targets, green growth through the application of the 3Rs (reduce, reuse and recycle), etc. It is worth noting that the Water Sector Transformation (WST) 2040 project by the Economic Planning Unit of the Prime Minister’s Department is at its halfway mark, and due to be completed by the end of this year.

The National Agenda for WST 2040 aims to transform the national water sector so that water will be seen as a new economic sector that will boost national employment as well as forge Malaysia’s science, technology and innovation development and contribute to our gross domestic product.

Each of us can play a part in addressing this global water issue. In 2019, statistics from the National Water Services Commission (SPAN) showed that consumption per capita in Peninsular Malaysia and Labuan has spiked to 230 litres per capita per day (LCD), which is 40 per cent higher than the UN benchmark of 165 litres per person every day.

This LCD value has been on the rise in recent years, i.e. up from 226 litres (LCD) in 2018 and 222 LCD in 2017. It has been reported that a single Malaysian wastes up to 50,000 litres of water yearly. We can reduce this by practising some simple habits in our daily lives like reducing time in the shower, turning off the water while brushing teeth, checking for leakage in pipes and toilets and much more.

For this year’s World Water Day, let’s reflect on our water habits and improve on our actions so that there is access to clean water for the future generations to ensure they will have the same access that we have had the privilege of having during this last year, which has allowed us to stay healthy.