LONDON - Less than one-tenth of Malawi's urban population live in homes connected to sewers, according to a report by a research group that blamed "misleading" official statistics for hiding the scale of the problem.

The London-based International Institute for Environment and Development said 20 percent of Malawi's 13 million people live in urban areas with the urban population expected to double between 2010 and 2030.

In a survey of 1,178 households conducted in May and June last year, it found that water and sanitation remained "woefully inadequate" in the nine settlements across Malawi's three biggest cities - Blantyre, Lilongwe and Mzuzu.

The report published on Thursday also said that only one in four of the households polled had their own individual water connections.

Half of them relied on water kiosks - with some families in the southern African country ranked 162 out of 179 on U.N. human development index buying just one bucket of water a week.

Not only were the kiosks open for an average six hours a day, but interruptions to supply were common, the report said.

To compensate, many families were taking water from potentially contaminated sources such as shallow wells and rivers posing a health risk with cholera and diarrhoea occurring frequently.

"Regular, safe, affordable supplies of water and good provision for toilets are such an obvious part of development, and so central to better health," said Mtafu Manda, director of Alma Consultancy, a private planning and environmental management practice, who carried out the interviews.

"They are also central to livelihoods and for saving time, meaning no longer having to walk long distances or endure long queues to get water or use a communal toilet," Manda said in a statement.

MILLENNIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS

The poor state of clean, plentiful water supply and sanitation means Malawi is in danger of missing United Nations targets to raise living standards in impoverished countries.

The U.N. Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to reduce poverty were agreed in 2000 and include a target to halve the population without long-term access to water and sanitation by 2015.

With the deadline six years away, U.N. officials have said Ethiopia and Cape Verde were the only African countries on track to meet the MDG targets.

The Institute said the Malawi findings jarred with official statistics for 2006 suggesting that 96 percent of its urban population had access to drinking water and 97 percent had access to safe sanitation.

"Certainly, it shows that the number of those with adequate provision is far below the official statistics," David Satterthwaite, senior fellow in the Institute's Human Settlements Programme told AlertNet.

The report said the official statistics on water did not use the MDG definition of "sustainable access to safe drinking water".

It also said Malawi would be meeting the U.N. target on sanitation in urban areas only if "basic sanitation" included very basic pit latrines that are shared by households and often poorly maintained.

"Official statistics don't ask if water is in the pipe, if you can drink it, if you have to queue three hours to get it," Satterthwaite added.

A government official declined to comment. Principle Secretary in the Ministry of Irrigation and Water development, Andrina Mchiela said: "I am yet to read the report and therefore I cannot respond to what I have no knowledge of."

(Additional reporting by Mabvuto Banda in Malawi)

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