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UNICEF/WHO report calls for more progress on sanitation

31 July 2008

 

Nigeria: A child walks by an open sewer in a Lagos slumImage courtesy of Jacob Silberberg/Panos pictures

 

Too many of the world's poorest people are being exposed to dangerous sanitary conditions, a major new report has confirmed. The paper - from UNICEF and the World Health Organisation - reveals that, though excellent progress has been made recently in widening the availability of clean water in developing countries, basic sanitation for even half the planet is still far away from being achieved. 

Published every year by a special joint group set up to monitor the state of the world's drinking water and sanitation, 2008's report comes midway through the UN's International Year of Sanitation. A timely reminder that nearly 1.2 billion people globally still practice open defecation (the riskiest of all sanitary practices), it will help policy makers and others in the international community to establish what needs to be done to meet the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) on water and sanitation.

Achievements so far

DFID has played a leading role in supporting the work of the joint group. The Department's Senior Water Adviser, Peregrine Swann, welcomed the report for identifying progress made so far and for showing where efforts should be focused in the future:

"This is an extremely useful document -  it sets out where we are at. It’s clear that there is more work to be done and we are not on track to meet all the MDG targets, but it’s not all bad news.

"The report reveals that more than 1 billion people have gained access to piped drinking water since 1990. This means that 54% of the world’s population now have a piped water connection in or near their homes, which is fantastic. The health benefits that will flow from this will be very significant."

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Detailing the challenges

This year's report looks at sanitation practices in greater depth than before, as well as giving detailed information about how people around the world obtain their water supplies.

Some of its key findings on the state of the world's water are:

  • While the world is on track to reach the MDG water targets, Sub-Saharan Africa remains off track.
  • Trends suggest that 90% of the global population will use improved drinking water sources by 2015.
  • Three of the 10 countries that have made the most rapid progress and are on track to meet the MDG drinking water targets are DFID Public Service Agreement (PSA) countries: Malawi, Ghana, and Uganda.
  • Among the countries not yet on track to meet the sanitation target, but making rapid progress, are the DFID PSA countries Yemen and Zambia.

The report's major findings on sanitation include:

  • Based on current trends, the world is off track to meet the MDG sanitation targets.
  • Two and a half billion people remain without improved sanitation facilities, mostly in Sub-Saharan Africa and Southern Asia.
  • The rate of growth in sanitation coverage is particularly slow in Sub-Saharan Africa - between 1990 and 2006, access to improved sanitation facilities only increased from 26 to 31% of the population.
  • Nearly half of all people in Southern Asia practice open defecation, including around 667 million in India.

Read the full report - External Hyperlink"Progress on Drinking Water and Sanitation: Special Focus on Sanitation" - on UNICEF's website.


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