Expert Groups Water Issues

EXPERT GROUPS – WATER ISSUES

FACTS

World Water Day is 22 March and World Toilet Day is 19 November.
Water and sanitation are fundamental human rights. Everyone should have sufficient, affordable, physically accessible, safe and acceptable water for personal and domestic uses.
It is estimated that the average person in industrialised countries uses 500-800 litres per day (300 cubic metres per year), compared to 60-150 litres per day (20 cubic metres per year) in developing countries.
1.1 billion people do not have safe drinking water and 2.6 billion do not have adequate sanitation (toilets and washing facilities), 1.8 million people die every year from diarrhoeal diseases, 90 % of which are children under 5.
The Eastern, South-Eastern and Western Asia, Northern Africa and Latin America and the Caribbean regions are on track to meet Millennium Development Goal 7, to halve the proportion of people without basic sanitation by 2015.
In the sub-Saharan African region, the absolute number of people without access to sanitation has increased from 335 million in 1990 to 440 million people by the end of 2004.
Agriculture consumes 60 to 80 per cent of the fresh water resources in most countries. It takes 3,000 litres of water to produce 1 kilogram of rice and 16,000 litres to produce a kilogram of beef.
Water-borne diseases are responsible for 80 per cent of illnesses and deaths in the developing world, killing a child every eight seconds.
In 2006 floods killed 5,862 people and affected 31,134 people. In contrast, drought and food insecurity killed 74 people and affected 39,671people.
The human body is about 70 per cent water. Water lost through bodily functions needs to be replaced within a couple of days. Diarrhoeal diseases increase the rate of water loss causing the deaths of many babies. A simple mixture of sugar and salts, Oral Rehydration Therapy (ORT), reduces infant deaths.

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Water is the source of life – vital for health, food and economic development. Without sufficient and affordable clean water, people suffer a range of illnesses. As a result, they may be unable to work or attend school, and are trapped in a brutal cycle of illness and poverty. Poorly managed water resources result in environmental degradation and an insufficient water supply. Exclusion from water and sanitation services on the basis of poverty, ability to pay, group membership or place of habitation is a violation of the human right to water.

Every year almost two million children die needlessly from diarrhoeal dehydration. A simple course of Oral Rehydration Salts (ORS) is often all that’s needed to save a child's life – five small sachets of sugar and mineral salts mixed with water, at a cost of justseven cents each.