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| Summary |
Safe drinking water, sanitation and good hygiene are fundamental to health, survival,
growth and development. However, these basic necessities are still a luxury for
many of the world s poor people. Over 1.1 billion of our fellow citizens do not use
drinking water from improved sources, while 2.6 billion lack basic sanitation. Safe
drinking water and basic sanitation are so obviously essential to health that they
risk being taken for granted. Efforts to prevent death from diarrhoea or to reduce
the burden of such diseases as ascaris, dracunculiasis, hookworm, schistosomiasis
and trachoma are doomed to failure unless people have access to safe drinking
water and basic sanitation. Lack of basic sanitation indirectly inhibits the learning
abilities of millions of school-aged children who are infested with intestinal worms
transmitted through inadequate sanitation facilities and poor hygiene.
The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) have set us on a common course to
push back poverty, inequality, hunger and illness. The world has pledged to reduce
by half the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water
and basic sanitation. Entering the International Decade for Action, Water for Life,
2005-2015, this report looks at the challenge of meeting the MDG target for
drinking water and sanitation. Achieving the MDG drinking water and sanitation
target poses two major challenges: a rapid pace of urbanization, which requires a
major effort even to keep up the current coverage levels; a huge backlog of rural
people unserved with basic sanitation and safe drinking water, which calls for an
intensive mobilization of resources to reduce the vast coverage gap between urban
and rural populations. |
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