Water is essential for human health, economic growth and food security, and environmental sustainability. Lack of access to appropriate sanitation increases disease, undermines human dignity, and disproportionately impacts women and girls over men and boys. Healthy people, productive livelihoods, individual and collective dignity, peace, and security depend on sustainable access to clean water and sanitation. Progress is being made in achieving the internationally agreed goals on water and sanitation. Today, 87 percent of the world’s population uses drinking water from an improved source — a 10 percent increase since 1990. Sixty-two percent have access to improved sanitation — an 8 percent increase since 1990.
Despite this progress, much more remains to be done. Today, one person in eight6 lacks access to an improved drinking water source; 40 percent of the world’s population lacks access to improved sanitation. In Sub-Saharan Africa, more than 19 percent of the urban and 54 percent of the rural population lack access to an improved drinking water source. In Asia, more than 500 million people practice open defecation. If present trends continue, the world will not meet the international goal on sanitation.
Numbers tell only part of the story. Dirty water spreads diarrheal disease, typhoid, polio, guinea worm disease, schistosomiasis, Hepatitis A and E, and cholera. Inadequate access to safe water and sanitation contributes to undernourishment, a major factor in child deaths. Inadequate access also impedes economic growth, as measured by the cost of water-related disease, lowered worker productivity, reduced school attendance, environmental degradation, and stunted agricultural development. Finally, distant access to water supply disproportionately impacts women and girls, who often forgo other economic or educational opportunities to collect water for the family.
Population growth and changing consumption patterns will exacerbate the global water and sanitation challenge. By 2020, global water use is expected to increase by 40 percent. Two out of three people could be living under conditions of water stress by 2025, and 1.8 billion people could be living in regions with absolute water scarcity. The lack of water is expected to reduce food productivity by 10 percent by 2030. Regions may experience greater hydrological variability, more droughts, and more floods as a result of climate change. As demands increase and conditions change, tensions over shared water resources, both within and among countries, are likely to grow.
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