There are currently 750 million individuals across the globe without clean water and around 2.5 billion without access to sanitation across the globe.
Added to this, many countries are suffering from lack of or old and failing infrastructure and around one billion individuals who still defecate in the open, sometimes in the same rivers and streams from which they get their water, and we get just an idea of the challenges ahead of us.
5 Years Left to Achieve Clean Water & Sanitation for All
The United Nations will release the latest and, some might say, most ambitious set Of Global Development Goals yet, the Sustainable Development Goals.
The main goal is water and sanitation: “By 2030, every man, woman and child – whether at home, school, hospital or their workplace – should have access to a safe water supply and be able to go to the toilet in a clean space with privacy.â€
An added challenge is the burgeoning global population, which it is estimated will grow by another 1.5 billion people by 2030, with most of the additions being in the developing world which is already severely water-scarce.
A huge draw-back is the lack of finances, most of which in many countries comes from aid and charitable contributions – insufficient to sustain the required approximately $47 billion a year, as per the World Bank. Unfortunately many governments also fail time and again to prioritise sanitation and water in national budgets, there is a lack of skill, rates are too low to cover maintenance and operations, and there is generally a lack of access to low-cost and long-term capital for investing in infrastructure.
Sanitation and Water for All, a global partnership led by southern governments, is bringing together a wide group of players consisting of the private sector, civil society and donors, who are bent on closely monitoring the situation and pushing for progress.
While much progress has already been made in the push to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, the momentum must be maintained and built on at an accelerated rate if we are to develop the necessary national financing mechanisms within the next five years, which is the only way that we could possibly achieve the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030.
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