Water: The Achievement of a Millennium Development Goal – By Selby Knudson

Water is essential to everyday life and yet, in 1990, 24 percent of the world’s population did not have access to clean drinking water. This paved the way for stronger efforts to battle the world’s water woes and the lack of access to clean water was addressed in the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals. One goal was to reduce by half the number of people who lived without access to adequate drinking water. Recently, it has been determined that this goal has finally been achieved. This achievement marks the first goal to be accomplished and means that the health and well-being of communities around the globe should greatly increase.

What strikes me most about this major achievement in world health is the relatively little fanfare it has received. Water is taken for granted so much in the United States; we tend to forget that there are others that have no access to clean water. Accomplishing one of the goals set out by the United Nations years ahead of schedule is a major accomplishment and yet, it is an accomplishment that no one knows about. Could it be the remaining huge disparities in access to water that has the international community unwilling to celebrate?

There are now 6.1 billion people (89% of total population) who have access to clean water. This access is essential to the health of communities. Water-borne illnesses, such as typhoid fever, cholera, and hepatitis A are all transmitted through dirty water. Other diseases, such as guinea worm, are also associated with lack of access to clean water. Millions of deaths in children under five year of age are linked to diarrhea – a disease commonly caused by unclean water. By giving people easy access to clean water, health risks such as these will greatly diminish.

Throughout the developing world there have been many NGOs and governments that have devoted a lot of time and money to digging wells and coming up with other creative solutions for communities lacking easy access to water. This push for water has led to the number of people without water being cut in half in a decade.

This is a huge accomplishment for the international community. It shows growth and progress in developing countries. Most importantly it shows that the world is serious about the goals it set out to accomplish at the beginning of the decade. So why isn’t everybody celebrating?

Of the almost two billion people that gained access to clean drinking water in the past decade, more than half have been in China and India. In Sub Saharan Africa, only 61 percent of people have improved access to water. Also, although 89 percent of the world has gained access to water, only 63 percent of the developing world has improved access. Of all the countries not on track to meet the goal, only seven of them are not in Africa.

The disparities in success of this goal must be thoroughly examined before the world can claim absolute victory in guaranteeing access to clean water. Sub-Saharan Africa continues to struggle compared to the rest of the world, and they are not making much headway in addressing the problem for the 39 percent of the population that still does not have good access. Many of the water-borne diseases still have a huge impact on populations in Africa and the under-five mortality rate due to diarrhea is still extremely high in some countries there. Africa is lagging behind the rest of the world in the quest for clean water. Much more can be done, and much more needs to be done before the world can be truly assured that there is access to clean water for all.

References:

http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2012/drinking_water_20120306/en/

http://www.unicef.org/media/media_61922.html

http://www.unicef.org/media/files/JMPreport2012.pdf

http://rootsandwingsintl.org/blog/2012/03/celebrating-the-mdg-achievement-of-safe-drinking-water/