Around 5,000 children die of preventable water and sanitation related diseases every day
LONDON (AlertNet) - Ending the global water and sanitation crisis should be considered one of the biggest international development challenges of the 21st century, a report says.
More people lack adequate sanitation services today than in 1990, according to WaterAid, which is calling on donor countries to double global aid flows to $20 billion with an additional $10 billion a year to fix the crisis.
Almost one billion people worldwide live without access to clean water, and 2.6 billion live without proper sanitation. Each day, an average of 5,000 children die of preventable water and sanitation related diseases, according to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
Unless urgent action is taken, most governments in Sub-Saharan Africa and many in South Asia will not meet a 2015 Millennium Development Goal (MDG) target of halving the number of people without access to basic sanitation, WaterAid said in its report released ahead of World Toilet Day on November 19.
The MDGs are eight targets set by the United Nations in 2010 to try and alleviate global poverty.
“Governments in both donor and developing countries have it in their power to save hundreds of thousands of children’s lives every year by increasing what they spend on water and sanitation,” Barbara Frost, WaterAid’s chief executive, told AlertNet.
“Investments in these basic services are engines of economic growth and prosperity in developing countries, but unless we grasp this opportunity we will be failing the millions of poor people whose health, livelihoods and opportunities suffer because they lack these essential services.”
The sanitation crisis is the main cause of diarrhoea – the biggest killer of children in Africa and the second biggest killer of children in South Asia – responsible for over two million deaths globally each year, WaterAid’s report says.
On the current trajectory, it will take more than 200 years for Sub-Saharan Africa to meet its sanitation MDG target, the report adds, noting that only 20 countries in the region are on track to meet the water MDG target by 2015.
Based on WaterAid’s South Asia projections, it will be 2028 before Pakistan meets its MDG on sanitation, while Bangladesh will not reach it until 2029, Nepal until 2030 and India until 2047.
Countries in Sub-Saharan Africa need to spend at least 3.5 percent of GDP on sanitation and water while off-track countries in South Asia need to spend at least 1 percent of GDP on sanitation, the report says.
In addition to increased financing, WaterAid says governments should better target water and sanitation resources and services to the people and countries that need it the most.
The report adds that it is the poorest who are being left behind; poor people in Africa are five times less likely to have access to adequate sanitation and over 15 times more likely to defecate in the open than Africa’s rich; while poor people in South Asia are 13 times less likely to have access to sanitation than the rich.
WaterAid’s report highlights that the shortfall in water and sanitation services costs Sub-Saharan African countries around 5 percent of GDP each year ($47.7 billion in 2009), more than is provided in development aid to the entire continent ($47.6 billion in 2009).
In India alone, the shortfall in water and sanitation services cost the economy around 6.4 percent of GDP, the equivalent of $53.8 billion in 2006 according to the World Bank, the report says.
The report, called "Off-Track, Off-Target", is published to coincide with a new drive to urge governments to do more to tackle the water and sanitation crisis. The Water Works campaign aims to show world leaders that taps and toilets are simple, effective and affordable, and that investing in these basic human needs is urgent.
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