“We often think of buckets for food security. But in the Pacific, it means water security,” said Dave Hebblethwaite, the Pacific Community’s Water Security and Governance Coordinator.
To illustrate his point, Hebblethwaite joined other stakeholders in water security at a virtual plenary session at last month’s Pacific Resilience Meeting at the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat in Fiji, holding a white plastic bucket in his hand.
“All around the Pacific, this vessel is used by communities who are [getting] water either from wells or rainwater harvesting, either in [peak] times or in times of emergencies.”
He noted the vessel was 15 litres in volume—the exact amount a person needs in one day for washing, cooking, bathing, and drinking.
“This unit is not just relevant during times of disasters, but it is a unit used every day,” he said.
The shocking reality about water scarcity in the region is that only 60% of the Pacific’s population has access to basic drinking water sources, according to data collected through a joint monitoring program by two United Nations agencies—the United Nations Children’s Fund and the World Health Organization.
“The Pacific has the world’s lowest levels of access to basic drinking water sources, and unfortunately, that number gets worse when we look at access to basic sanitation facilities which is at 33% for the Pacific,” said Hebblethwaite.
“There’s a high number of Pacific communities that are resorting to the bush or the beach for their toilet facilities. 13% of Pacific Islanders rely sometimes on the bush or the beach to openly defecate, affecting not just the ones that do it, but also those that live in communities where this is being practised.
Most of these numbers come from the Pacific’s rural and maritime communities and “the numbers are driven heavily from people living in the bush in Papua New Guinea,” he added.
Another factor causing water scarcity is “less than a quarter of Pacific Islanders live in an urban area, and even less live near connected pipe services,” he said. “This is important when we think of water security because in the Pacific, water security is primarily managed at a household, village or an island council level so supporting those communities to better manage their resources and supporting women and girls will play a really essential role.”
The Pacific, Hebblethwaite says, also has the world’s greatest disparity in access between urban and rural communities, with 51% of rural dwellers having access to basic water facilities compared to 93% of urban dwellers.
“It is profound, and it shows the challenge in actually supporting these communities to have not just services, but the capacity to manage the extremes of water, whether it be drought or flood or the impacts of water-borne diseases,” he said.
Lusia Sefo–Leau, Chief Executive Officer for the Pacific Water and Wastewater Association (PWWA) concurred that the data “speaks volumes about the unmet demand for water that is there in our communities”.
In its years of service, Sefo–Leau said PWWA has done its benchmarking survey amongst its 30 utilities spread across 21 countries and territories in the Pacific.
From that survey, PWWA found that the Solomon Islands Water Association (SIWA) services a population of about 61,000 – “a mere 10% of the country’s total population.”
She continued: “Kiribati Public Utilities Corporation provides water to only 32% of the country’s total population and Tonga Water Board 60% of the total population. So, the question is, what about the rest of the countries who have no access [to water]? Who provides for them?”
Water security is not all about access either. More than 90% of disasters are water-related, with climate change hitting hardest through water, said Sefo–Leau.
“Two natural disasters stand out for me as the most destructive water disasters in Samoa in the last decade. First, the floods of 2012, which destroyed livelihoods, assets, and people’s properties. And secondly, the floods of 2020, which I must say, are the worst that I have seen in the Apia urban area in my lifetime.
“People say a picture speaks a thousand words and an aerial view of Apia under knee-high brown dirty water in the middle of COVID-19 is a picture that is stuck in my mind.
“Water is the connector of all living things. It connects us all at a very basic level. It flows through us, from us and around us, it rises from below and falls from above in different forms. It can sustain life, provided it is accessible, and sustainably and safely available, but it can also destroy life if we do not plan and manage the risks,” she added.
When water is affected, so are food systems.
“There are so many, what we would call, disruptors that are impacting on the food system to be resilient and adaptive,” said Michaela Cosjin, Team Leader for Livelihoods and Adaptive Environments with the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO). She was also part of a virtual plenary session on food security at the Pacific Resilience Meeting, which emphasised the need for breaking down silos and focusing on co-developing solutions.
Some of those disruptors include “markets and financial shocks that we’re seeing, a pandemic like COVID-19 was a major disrupter to the food system, and some of the animal diseases that are emerging across the whole Asia Pacific region, like African swine fever and some other pests and diseases. Even things that are not just within our region, like the Ukrainian war, and who knows how it’s going to play out now with what’s happening with Israel and Palestine,” Cosjin stressed.
“COVID-19 has taught us in the last couple of years that the disruption of production and the anxiety from the eruption of the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai last year, has really exacerbated the confidence level in our farmers and fishermen,” Minoru Nishi, Managing Director of Nishi Trading Tonga, reiterated.
Nishi revealed 70% of Pacific farmers live in rural areas. “They are important for our food security, and I don’t think enough attention is given to them to address their needs at the grassroots level,” he said.
The President of the Pacific Island Farmers Organization (PIFON) said the umbrella organisation has gone from strength to strength, from 18,000 members in eight countries to now more than 90,000 members represented in 14 countries.
Partnerships are essential and they need to include “farmers, businesses, governments, and donor agencies,” said Nishi. “They need to come and collaborate and listen to the voices of our farmers and fishermen in order to develop policies and systems to address some of the challenges that they face.”
Last year, Tonga’s food exports were down by 62%, the worst it’s ever been, and that’s because of COVID-19, the volcanic eruption and the drought, Nishi highlighted.
Nishi said Pacific Island countries should be addressing and supporting local industries, local farmers, and fishermen to create employment, noting that Tonga is “losing a lot of our youth to seasonal worker schemes in Australia and New Zealand.”
“We need to break down barriers for inter-regional trade, something that I’ve spoken about for many years and very little has been done. I think we need political will from our leaders at the PIFS to seek good advice from the right people in order to make informed decisions.”
Nishi added: “We need to really think about our approach to climate change, food security, and the health of our people. I’d like to reiterate the strength of our farmers’ organisation in the region—that is a model and an approach that we should take and build on.”
