Water and Sanitation
Currently 1.2 billion people do not have access to safe water. 2.6 billion people - around one third of the world’s population - do not have access to basic sanitation such as a toilet or latrine. This has a huge impact on people’s health and livelihoods. More than half of all of the hospital beds in the world are occupied by people suffering from water-related diseases. Five thousand children die every single day from dirty water and inadequate sanitation, and women and children have to spend time collecting water rather than working or going to school.
Millennium Development Goal number 7 target 10 commits governments to halving the number of people without access to safe water and basic sanitation by 2015. If this is going to happen we need to bring clean water to 300,000 people and sanitation to 450,000 people every day between now and 2015. However, the current rate of progress is much too slow. While some countries may meet the water target, it is not expected to be met by all in Africa until 2050 at the earliest. No region of the world is likely to meet the sanitation target, with Africa not likely to meet it until 2100.
Progress has been delayed due to insufficient and poorly targeted aid; a lack of technical capacity at all levels; a lack of priority given to the sector by national governments; the effects of climate change and the fact that sanitation is often stigmatised and marginalised. Global political will needs to be galvanised behind these issues to make real progress. The 2006 UNDP Human Development Report recognised this, and the 2005 Commission for Africa Report also called on the G8 to review its commitments to water and sanitation.
Micah Challenge calls on the G8 to:
- Begin working towards a new Global Action Plan for water and sanitation, with clear and measurable targets and indicators, and a solid action plan for monitoring progress at the highest political level, which galvanises urgent international action in this sector.
