Geneva, 6 March ( EFE).-three years earlier of stipulations, has been fulfilling the goal of the Millennium goals ( MDGs) of halving the proportion of people without access to safe drinking water, concludes a report from Unicef and the World Organization of health ( who).
The text, released today, reveals that between 1990 and 2010, more than 2,000 million people gained access to improved sources of drinking water, thanks to pipes or protected wells.
According to the text – whose figures date from 2010 – 89% of the world’s population, about 6,100 million people, using improved drinking water sources, representing a 1% more than the figure that you pointed out the goal of the MDGs.
The text authors estimate that by 2015, 92% of the world’s population have access to drinking water.
“Access to drinking water is one of the most important health determinants”, and “reduce exponentially the risk of disease”, said at press conference the Director of public health and environment of who, Maria Neira.
“More than 3,000 children die daily from causing diarrhoea and diseases which are transmitted by not having safe drinking water and adequate sanitation, are therefore essential elements for survival,” said the director of the Department of water and sanitation of the United Nations Fund for children (Unicef), Sanjay Wijesekera. turn
Of the UN General Assembly established in 2010 that water and sanitation are basic human rights of every individual.
The Millennium goals are goals of improving socio-economic levels that the UN established in 2000 to be met by the 2015.
Notwithstanding the conclusion by the achievement of the goal concerning drinking water, yet there are 783 million, 11% of the world’s population has no access to it, which is why the two UN agencies call for “more effort and more money”.
“Performance in access to drinking water and sanitation is one of opportunity costs higher, why must not relent in efforts”, said Neira.
The reverse of the coin is sanitation, given that the report reveals that he is far from achieving the target set in the Millennium development goals, and is “unlikely” to do so by the year 2015.
Estimates the goal is only achieved in 2026 unless you have an effort to exponential to reverse it.
Only 63% of the inhabitants of the planet have access to sanitation, a figure that will only increase to 67% in 2015, far below the 75% target contained in the MDGs.
Today, still 2.5 billion people still lack this type of infrastructure.
By region, only 61% of the inhabitants of sub-Saharan Africa have access to improved water sources compared with 90% in Caribbean, North Africa and large parts of Asia and Latin America.
In fact, more than 40% of all people worldwide who lack access to safe drinking water live in sub-Saharan Africa.
Also, an additional element is the “disproportionate burden” that lack of water causes in the lives of women and girls, given that most of the cases are in charge of obtaining it.
“They spend hours to find and bring water, that time is that involved not to go to school and that clearly diminishes its future development,” said Neira.
Of the 1.1 billion people who still do their physiological needs in the open air, the vast majority (949 million) live in rural areas.
This occurs in regions with high levels of access to improved water. For example 17 per cent of the rural population of Latin America and the Caribbean and 9% in North Africa.
There are a large number of people that carry out this practice even in countries with rapidly growing economies: 626 million in the India, 14 million in China and 7.2 million in Brazil. EFE
