We're
Lucky to Have the Water We Have!
1.
Improved water management has brought enormous benefits to people in developing
countries. In the past 20 years, over 2.4 billion people have
gained access to safe water supplies and 600 million
to improved sanitation.
2. Nevertheless, one
in six people (1.1 billion) still have no regular access to safe drinking
water.
3. More than twice that
number (2.4 billion people) lack access to adequate sanitation
facilities.
4. Those without access
to adequate sanitation are the poorest and most vulnerable. The problem
is particularly severe in remote rural and rapidly growing urban areas.
5. In Africa, 300 million
people – 40 percent of the population – live without
basic sanitation and hygiene, as increase of 70 million since
1990.
6. As much as 90
percent of waste water in developing countries is discharged without treatment
into rivers and streams.
7. Unsanitary
water, which provides a breeding ground for parasites, amoebas
and bacteria, damages the health of 1.2 billion people a year.
8. Water-borne
diseases are responsible for 80 percent of illnesses
and deaths in the developing world, killing a child every eight
seconds.
9. Half the
world’s hospital beds are occupied by people suffering from water-borne
diseases.
10. Almost 40 percent
of the world’s population lives within 60 kilometers of the coast.
Disease and death related to polluted coastal waters alone
costs the global economy US $16 billion a year.
11. In Southern
Asia, between 1990 and 2000, 220 million people benefited
from improved access to freshwater and sanitation. In the same
period, the population grew by 222 million, wiping out the gains
that had been made.
12. During the same
period, in East Africa, the number of people without sanitation
doubled to 19 million.
13. The cost
of providing safe drinking water and proper sanitation to everyone in
the world by 2025 will be US $180 billion a year, two
to three times greater than present investments.
