In 2000, the United Nations created the Millennium Declaration, an eight-point development agenda designed to improve the human condition throughout the world by 2015. To support the Millennium Declaration Goals (MDG), the United Nations established the Millennium Project.
Water Goals of the Millennium Project
Water factors significantly into Goal Seven, which is to ensure environmental sustainability. The plan for Goal Seven calls for the number of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation to be halved by 2015. Water also factors significantly into Goal One, the elimination of poverty. The World Water Development Report points out: “Problems of poverty are inextricably linked with those of water–its availability, its proximity, its quantity and its quality. Improving the access of poor people to water has the potential to make a major contribution towards poverty eradication.”
Water Goals in Rural and Urban Areas
According to the 2010 MDG report, most of the advancements toward reaching the water goals have been made in rural areas: the gap between clean water access in underdeveloped and developed areas is narrowing. However, this accessibility gap widens significantly when we consider households with piped water: twice as many people benefit from piped water in the city than do in the country.
Progress Toward Meeting Water Goals
The most progress toward meeting MDGs was made in East Asia, where access increased by 30% over the reporting period. Water access in Sub-Saharan Africa improved 20%; however, still only 60% of the population there can access water. In Oceania, where only 50% of the population can access water, there was no progress toward reaching water goals.
Water Goals and Our Future
Some of the difficulties in meeting the MDGs include pollution from man-made and naturally occurring sources and the difficulty of measuring water quality. However, according to the World Health Organization, the world will meet or even surpass the drinking water goals by 2015, with nearly 1.7 billion people having gained water access since 1990. By that time, roughly 86% of people in developing regions will have gained access to “improved sources” of drinking water, sources defined as protected from outside contamination. These sources include piped household connections, protected wells and springs, public taps and boreholes.
Northern Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, Eastern Asia and South-Eastern Asia, have already met the water goals.
In July of 2010, the United Nations declared access to safe drinking water a human right. This resolution follows years of global campaigning to bring recognition to the problems of safe water and sanitation access. About 884 million people cannot access safe drinking water, and more than 2.6 billion people cannot access basic sanitation. More than two million people die annually due to a lack of clean drinking water and diseases caused by contaminated water. Diarrhea caused by drinking infected water is the second largest cause of the death of children under five years old.
The Importance of Water and Sanitation Access
Improvements in water and sanitation systems in developing areas of the world are directly linked to improvements in overall quality of life. Implementation of closed sanitary systems decreases child mortality by one-third. Access to clean water increases human productivity and overall health. Also, since access to water is often subject to discriminatory practices based on class, race, or gender, wider access to water can aid social equality in developing regions.
International Policies
Both the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations (UN) have begun programs to improve global access to drinking water and sanitation. The UN has declared the time period between 2005 and 2015 an International “Water For Life” Decade, during which massive educational and developmental programs have been implemented to increase the world’s access to water and sanitation. The WHO also has several programs in place that intervene in areas where water access is at risk; these programs educate people about water management and sanitation.
Education
Education is vital to the drive for water and sanitation access. Undereducated populations need to understand the risks of using contaminated water. Local and governmental authorities need to learn the costs and advantages of developing new water distribution programs. People need to learn techniques for harvesting rainwater, creating wells, and treating, storing, and distributing water. Programs that help to build and install these systems are also very helpful.
The discrepancy between clean water access in the industrial world and in the developing world is alarming. Although this discrepancy has tapered in recent years, the problem of water access continues to plague much of the world’s population. People in privileged parts of the world continuously need to assist the less fortunate in their struggle for health and dignity. People who wish to help the UN and WHO to meet their goals can visit their websites for more information on how to donate time and money to their cause.
Access to water has always been an important factor in the location of settlements, whether primitive or modern, human or animal, and the need for water is a universal part of life. Unfortunately, billions of people around the world still lack access to potable water. Water shortages are usually defined as third-world phenomena, but shortages of clean water are also prevalent in the United States. As the world’s population grows, humanity must recognize that water access is becoming an increasingly global concern.
Access to Clean Water
Access to water is vital, but access to clean water is even more critical. Today, approximately one billion people do not have access to clean water, which has severely harmed the health and economic development of the most affected regions. Further, according to UNICEF, lack of safe water is the world’s single largest cause of illness. Lack of clean water can cause afflictions such as river blindness, cholera, diarrhea, dysentery, and a number of other diseases and infections. The global water crisis is not unsolvable, though. Countries around the world are actively pursuing solutions such as reduction of pollution, infrastructure building, desalinization, improved irrigation, and more.
In man’s effort to stay safe, he has found ways to treat water. Water treatment occurs before the water enters a house. Unfortunately, water treatment is so simplistic that many people are still concerned for population safety. Sewage treatment is done on used water before it re-enters the source, such as a river or under ground supply. Sewage treatment speeds the process of eutrophication, or the aging process of water, and creates favorable breeding grounds for disease that would not be as concentrated if nature took care of itself. Taking the larger particles from sewage water is acceptable, but the later-stage biological processes are what cause eutrophication.
Access to water and particularly, clean water will always present a major problem to the human race. Unfortunately, there are too many people needing too many resources from the planet.
