Access to Water & Sanitation Facilities

Ensuring the access to the drinking water and to basic sanitary facilities

Studies are in progress to provide the access to the drinking water and to sanitary facilities for the population of several villages in the District of Sershul, where only a tiny number of facilities currently exist. The lack of access to water and sanitation is vector of illness and accentuate the morbidity in a region where the health conditions are already very poor.

The issue of Water and Sanitation: a global issue

« Every day, 6000 children under the age of five die because of poor hygiene and polluted water – 6000 daily deaths which could be prevented. For the SDC, strengthening institutional capability and developing human resources is a priority, so it backs projects with a potentially positive influence on national and regional strategies that impact on two mainstays of all socio-economic development: drinking water and sanitation.

Key facts

• Drinking water shortages and the lack of sanitation alone are responsible for 80% of the diseases prevalent in developing countries.

• Every year, 1.8 million children die from diarrhoea due to lack of water and poor hygiene.

• 800 million people worldwide do not have access to drinking water, and 1.7 billion do not have regular access to clean water or to sanitary facilities.

• 2.6 billion people have no access to basic sanitation systems.

Millennium Development Goal No. 7 advocates halving the number of people with no access to drinking water or basic sanitation by 2015. Will we manage to achieve this Goal? The current view is that it can still be done, though the situation is deteriorating. If it continues to do so, the sanitation target will not be met for over half a billion people.

Reversing this downward trend means working twice as hard, as of now. Commitment to drinking water and sanitation requires joint efforts by civil society and public- and private-sector players. If we fail to fulfil the MDG 7 contract, we will also miss the Goals for health, education, the environment and poverty. »

Source: DEZA: www.deza.ch