Population growth drowning gains

GENEVA – More than a billion people still have no clean water to drink as the international community falls far behind in its plan to halve their number by 2015, two UN agencies said on Tuesday.

“The world is in danger of missing targets for providing clean water and sanitation unless there is a dramatic increase in the pace of work and investment between now and 2015,” the UN Children’s Fund (Unicef) and World Health Organisation (WHO) said in a joint report. “The situation is becoming particularly acute in urban areas, where rapid population growth is putting great pressure on the provision of services and the health of poor people.”A huge amount of work will have to be done simply to maintain the proportion of those living in cities with access to improved drinking water and adequate sanitation,” the report said.From 1990 to 2004, 1,2 billion people gained improved access to drinking water – but this was almost entirely offset by population growth.The agencies define clean water as water from a pipe, public tap, borehole, protected dug well, protected spring or rainwater collector.The number of people without basic sanitation – toilets that flush into piped sewers or septic tanks, composting toilets or ventilated pit latrines – has fallen by only 98 million since 1990.Sanitation is available to just six in 10 people worldwide.The rest “are obliged to defecate in the open or use unsanitary facilities, with a serious risk of exposure to sanitation-related diseases”, the report found.Nampa-Reuters”The situation is becoming particularly acute in urban areas, where rapid population growth is putting great pressure on the provision of services and the health of poor people.”A huge amount of work will have to be done simply to maintain the proportion of those living in cities with access to improved drinking water and adequate sanitation,” the report said.From 1990 to 2004, 1,2 billion people gained improved access to drinking water – but this was almost entirely offset by population growth.The agencies define clean water as water from a pipe, public tap, borehole, protected dug well, protected spring or rainwater collector.The number of people without basic sanitation – toilets that flush into piped sewers or septic tanks, composting toilets or ventilated pit latrines – has fallen by only 98 million since 1990.Sanitation is available to just six in 10 people worldwide.The rest “are obliged to defecate in the open or use unsanitary facilities, with a serious risk of exposure to sanitation-related diseases”, the report found.Nampa-Reuters