Water marginalised: findings in international, British colonial, and post-colonial health discourses c. 1925-1975

During the twentieth century a range of administrators and specialists were concerned with the place of water as both the origin of public health problems and a substance essential to human life. Taking a chronological approach between 1925 and 1975 this thesis explores the twists and turns as these actors sought to use such framings to shape British colonial, post-colonial and international health policy. Arguing that water was marginalised within fragmentary structures of imperial and international policy making until the WHO, with UN backing, placed it at the heart of public health in the 1970s, this thesis explains the fluctuating visibility of water within colonial, post-colonial, and international health discourse during this period. It focuses on the role of international health organisations and draws primarily upon WHO engagements with the African continent, in particular Uganda and Sudan, to illustrate the plethora of theoretical and practical interactions with water and health. It investigates how scientists and bureaucrats who were operating in international and British colonial spheres used the art of compromise to overcome constraints shaping final policy decisions.
The role of water in international public health rarely features in the literature from the 1920s until the 1970s when the UN, the WHO, and other international organisations sought to bring water and sanitation as a pair to the forefront of international debates. Where water is present in the scientific scholarship of the times, it is predominantly treated as an interesting by-product rather than a central feature determining public health outcomes. In using the WHO’s Global Community Water Supply Programme (est. 1959) as a central point for analysis, this thesis explores how international health programmes before and after sought to encourage governments to prioritise investment in water supplies and sanitation. In doing so, this thesis deepens our understanding of twentieth-century engagements with water and sanitation in British imperial, British colonial, and international settings.