This potential is often not understood: the political prominence of water issues is all too often not translated into investment priorities. In particular, water management actions are poorly represented in the country's PRSP and in other key development strategies intended to focus national efforts on poverty reduction and attaining the MDGs.

Investments in water are also crucial for the mitigation of factors that put the poor and most vulnerable (especially women and children) at risk from different diseases, disabilities, poor nutrition and premature death. Water-borne and water-related diseases and conditions of ill-health directly associated with water, sanitation and hygiene are endemic in Bangladesh like in many other regions, which include infectious diarrhea (which, in turn, includes cholera, chronic dysentery and a number of other protozoal and viral infections), acute hepatitis A, E and F, typhoid and paratyphoid fevers, malaria, intestinal helminth infections, dengue, serious skin infections, etc.

Each year witnesses hundreds of preventable deaths, and tens of thousands of people ill from preventable diseases. And in all cases the poorest are the worst hit, which leads them to more ill-health, and more ill-health implies further impoverishment.

Access to safe drinking water, combined with adequate sanitation that prevents micro-organisms and other contaminants from reaching sources of drinking water and with personal hygiene such as hand washing and proper food handling, supported by sufficient quantities of water are the main contributors to greatly reducing transmission risks of many such diseases. All measures combined, i.e. the supply of safe drinking water and adequate sanitation, improved personal hygiene and environmental management aimed at disease vectors, translate into a considerable reduction of the costs of the delivery of health services incurred to the government, and the costs incurred to households, directly and indirectly, as a result of ill-health or, worse death of family members.

Pollution from urban and industrial waste and run-off of agro-chemicals are also seriously responsible for chemical contamination of surface water that is applied to food crops and livestock. In Bangladesh, the rivers and water bodies near urban stretches are "poisonously polluted due to free-style dumping of industrial effluents and toxic chemicals". And most often these industrialists and polluters are directly linked with ruling bigwigs. So, they don't care a damn about any health hazards and environmental hazards and laws in our lawless society. The government seems heedless of this slow acting, long run disaster. Ordinary people are quite helpless.

While arsenic contamination in groundwater affecting drinking and domestic water has turned into a disaster in Bangladesh (all the 64 districts affected), surface rivers and water bodies are also rapidly getting severely polluted. Most of the arsenic victims are poor women and children who have to depend on shallow groundwater wells that are extremely affected with high levels of arsenic presence for drinking water. They're quite often forced to drink arsenic contaminated water and can hardly afford any medical treatment or piped/improved water. With increasing population and poverty, it's the poorest (mainly women and children) who are affected most in all these disasters.

Notwithstanding, access to water is a basic human right which is explicitly recognised by the United Nations (UN) in a number of "legally binding treaties". The right to water is an integral part of other human rights, such as the right to life, which is contained in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966), and the rights to health, food, housing and an adequate standard of living, which are included in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966). These rights are also provided for in a series of other international and regional treaties.

Legally binding upon states that have signed them, there is explicit reference to the right to water in two core international human rights treaties:

l The Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (1979): Article 14 (2) -- State parties shall take all appropriate measures to eliminate discrimination against women in rural areas in order to ensure, on a basis of equality of men and women, that they participate in and benefit from rural development and, in particular, shall ensure to women the right: (h) to enjoy adequate living conditions, particularly in relation to housing, sanitation, electricity, water supply, and transport and communication.

l The Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989): Article 24 (1) -- State parties recognise the right of every child to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health and to facilities for the treatment of illness and rehabilitation of health...(2) State Parties shall pursue full implementation of this right and, in particular, shall take appropriate measures: (c) to combat disease and malnutrition, including within the framework of primary health care, through the application of readily available technology and through the provision of adequate nutritious foods and clean drinking water, taking into consideration the dangers and risks of environmental pollution ...

But in practice, the right to water is quite often not applied for a variety of reasons: absence of political will (mainly due to widespread corruption, inefficiency and mess in our political system), lack of resources, or simply people and the government, like in other developing countries, are not aware that the right exists or how to implement it. The poorest women and children in our society are extremely deprived and hard victims of discrimination. No 'social safety' virtually exists for them here.

Might-is-right culture is everywhere.

Going back to my point of analysis, the needs and priorities of poor people are better understood when viewed from a livelihoods perspective. As, in most cases, the livelihoods of poor people are complex, with households depending on a wide range of activities to sustain them, the provision of improved water services must reflect opportunities for livelihoods improvement. For example, the design of domestic water supplies is usually premised on norms for household consumption (drinking, cooking, bathing, washing) only and doesn't take into account home-based productive activities that are critical for the livelihoods of poor people. Many types of livelihood activities that depend on water take place in and around the house. This includes vegetable gardens, tree crops and livestock that are an important source of both nutritional balance and food security and of income opportunities.

Water needs can be very different between the rural poor and those living in urban or peri-urban areas. So, consideration must be given to understanding the diversity within the poor (the landless and those with land) and their livelihood activities and requirements. Few livelihood activities are possible without access to water.

Making sure that enough water is available, that allocation and cost recovery mechanisms reflect the different needs of different families and that supplies are reliable so that productive activities continue with a level of certainty can mean that domestic water supply improvements will not only help meet health goals, they can also be critical in meeting income, food security and other poverty reduction targets.

Hence, water management is a good investment that targets the poorest and most vulnerable and that produces both immediate economic returns and long term changes that are critical for sustainable development and poverty reduction.

Md Saiful Haque is a member of France based International Federation of Environment Journalists