Access to safe Water

This is the 2007 draft on water access. You will get the newest version here.

80% of all diseases in poor countries resolve from dirty drinking water (BMZ [Bundesministerium für wirtschaftliche Zusammenarbeit und Entwicklung]). Germs in drinking water lead to diarrhoea and other illnesses. Especially in case of undernourishment these diseases can have severe consequences.

Affected people and foundations of life: About 1.1 billion people don't have access to hygienic water, more than 2.6 billion are missing basic water sanitation (MA [Millennium Ecosystem Assessment] 2005, 13). Annually this leads to several billion cases of disease. Annually about 443 million school days are missed due to diarrhoea (UNEP [United Nations Environment Programme] 2007, 37).

Deaths: 1.73 million (WHO [World Health Organization] 2002, 226), 68% of them children (WHO 2004, 1344, 2146).

Loss of healthy life-years: 54.2 million of healthy life-years annually (DALYs [Disability-adjusted life years], attributable to unsafe water, sanitation and hygiene; WHO 2002, 228, 68).

Targets/goals:

• to halve the proportion of people who are unable to reach or to afford safe drinking water from 1990 to 2015 (Millennium Target: UN [United Nations] 2000, § 19 [1])
• to halve the proportion of those having no access to basic sanitation (World Summit on Sustainable Development: UN 2002, § 24, 7).

Trend: + By 2004 1.2 billion people already had received access to basic sanitation (UN 2006, 18). Nevertheless the chances for achieving both targets are not good. Access to improved drinking water resources has increased from 78% to 83% of world population since 1990; in less developed regions from 71% to 80% (UN 2007b, Indicator 30).

Measures: Possible measures range from disinfection at the point of consumption up to rainwater collection and household connections to water. A finance volume of US$ (United States dollar) 10 billion per year would be needed, less than the economic damage caused by diarrhoeal diseases (UNDP [United Nations Development Programme] 2006, 42).

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Annotations

For numeric names the short scale is used:
1 billion = one thousand million = 10⁹ = 1 000 000 000

DALYs: Disability-adjusted life years.
One DALY represents the loss of one year of equivalent full health. DALYs are the sum of the years of life lost due to premature mortality (YLL) in the population and the years lost due to disability (YLD) for incident cases of the health condition. (WHO 2004, 95f.)

Sources

• Bundesregierung (Federal Government of Germany) 2002: Perspectives for Germany; Our Strategy for Sustainable Development. [Berlin.]  
• MA 2005 – Millennium Assessment: Ecosystems and Human Well-being; Synthesis; A Report of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment.  (Written on behalf of the UN, coordinated by UNEP.) Washington.
• UN 2000 – United Nations, General Assembly: United Nations Millennium Declaration.  
• UN 2002 – United Nations, World Summit on Sustainable Development: Plan of Implementation.  
• UN 2006: The Millennium Development Goals Report 2006. New York, 2006.   [Published by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs DESA – June 2006.]
• UN 2007b – United Nations: The Millennium Development Goals Report 2007; Statistical Annex, Current Indicators.  
• UNDP 2006 – United Nations Development Programme: Human Development Report 2006; Beyond scarcity: Power, poverty and the global water crisis.  
• UNEP 2007 – United Nations Environment Programme: Global Environment Outlook 4.  
• WHO 2002 – World Health Organization: The World Health Report 2002 – Reducing Risks, Promoting Healthy Life.
• WHO 2004 – World Health Organization: WHO Report 2004.  

Draft (2007)