Joint Monitoring Program For Water Supply And Sanitation

The world’s supply of water is in steep decline as more and more is being used each year by more and more people around the globe. Currently, 800 million people do not have access to a drinking source. At the current rate, 1.8 billion people could be living in areas of absolute water scarcity by 2025.

Thanks to the United Nations general assembly recognizing the need for clean water in Resolution 64/292, the states and international organizations have been called on to provide funding and resources to help developing countries provide safe, clean, affordable, and accessible water to all. This is a step in the right direction, seeing as women and children in some countries have to walk more than 30 minutes to collect water- if there is any water to collect at all.

There is a water crisis which faces many parts of the world and it is a threat to survival of human beings since humans are primarily dependent on water. Shortage in drinking water is beginning to show its effects in first world countries, but is a current major problem facing lesser developed countries which have not taken drastic steps to harvest water and purify it to make it safe for human consumption. In developed countries the population growth has strained available water resources and stretched the ability of governments and private firms to provide safe drinking water to the vast majority of the population. Seventy one percent of

The water and sanitation problem in the developing world is far too big for charity alone. Water.org is driving the water sector for new solutions, new financing models, greater transparency, and real partnerships to create lasting change. Their vision: Safe

Two out of every five people living in Sub-Saharan Africa lack safe water. A baby there is 500 times more likely to die from water-related illness than one from the United States. This is a serious ongoing issue that requires the rest of the world to take action. Water spreads diseases easily if the necessary precautions are not taken. Many developing African countries don’t have sewage treatment, or the people don’t have methods to filter and disinfect. Once a person is sick either there is no way to cure them, or medical care is too expensive, so they are left untreated with a high risk of death. Although many believe that the fight for sanitary water in Africa is insurmountable, people in these developing countries can overcome their challenge to access clean water and avoid water-borne diseases through proper sewage treatment facilities, universal water filtration and medical care.

According to the United Nations, it says that Sub-Saharan Africa loses up to forty billion hours per year collecting water; which is very valuable time because most of the day is consumed by basic needs and no time for anything else but if a solution was done, so people wouldn’t have to lose three hours of their day gathering water it would be better. So when the water solution is taken into consideration, children can go back to school instead of getting water borne diseases and parents could have more time to take care of their families. The World Health Organization has shown that, “for every one dollar invested in water and sanitation, there is an economic return of between three to four dollars”.

There is a huge amount of people who do not have access to clean drinking water around the world. This highly affects their health and growth. Forty percent of Africa’s population and fifty-three percent of Asia’s population, lack access to clean drinking water. The access to clean water is a complicated issue, often influenced by politics, economics, climate, and social structure.

“A child dies every 15 seconds from illnesses caused by unsafe water, most of them in Africa. It's like 15 jumbo jets full of children crashing every day (Pearce).” People dying from contaminated water is a big issue, especially when we have the means and material to get water to people in need. Getting fresh water to people in Africa is beneficial to society because it would improve overall health there for improving overall life.

Sub-Saharan Africa has the challenges with water sanitation. Only 68% of people living within the region have access to an improved water

Around the world there are countries like Libya with limited fresh water sources that’s within several hundred kilometers between each other. This alone would be bad enough but, getting the water would be harder for disabled people which makes up fifteen percent of the population (and higher in developing countries). Therefore, there needs to be an efficient system to help countries have opportunities to have clean, safe, water accessible for people of all kinds whether they be disabled, national minorities, poor, or elderly.

Millennium Development Goal number 7, target 10 aims to halve the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation by 2015 . Water scarcity could threaten progress to reach this target. As governments and community organizations make it a priority to deliver adequate supplies of quality water to people, individuals can help by learning how to conserve and protect the resource in their daily lives. Good water management also reduces breeding sites for such insects as mosquitoes that can transmit diseasees and prevents the spread of

Water and sanitation come under the 6th Sustainable Development Goal set by the United Nations.1 These are a group of 17 goals addressing different global issues which are aimed to be achieved by 2030. Water and sanitation are both fundamental to survival and confer many devastating consequences should they be denied. The devastating impacts of a lack of both water and adequate sanitation are strongly linked.

Efforts to improve the coverage and access to potable water supply and sanitation services have been greatly intensified in the past few decades. Yet, the situation has not changed substantially in the Sub-Saharan countries Access to water supply in the region increased only from 48% in 1990 to 64% in 2012 (WHO and UNICEF, 2014). The factors that contribute to the still insufficient coverage of Water supply, Sanitation and hygiene (WaSH) are, among others, population growth, climate change (Howard et at., 2010), high rate of non-functional schemes (Harvey, 2008), and the lack of cost recovery systems or its ineffectiveness (Harvey, 2007).

Approximately 4 trillion cubic meters of water is available every year, and only 4% of that is used. The continent and people lack the technical knowledge and financial resources. In Africa is the greatest percentage of people lacking access to safe drinking water, there are 25 nations in the world and 19 are in Africa. (The global challenge, 2011) So adequate management of its water resources is crucial for the future of the African continent.

In 2005 at the UN’s World Summit, the international community pledged half the number of people living in extreme poverty by 2015 outlining the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). These are a series of eight dead lined targets, most of which aim to eradicate the root causes of poverty worldwide. These goals highlight the main forms in which poverty appears hunger, education, inequality and various health related problems. These are therefore the main areas that investment is made to reduce poverty (UNFPA, 2005). The eight MDG’s are: eradicating extreme poverty and hunger, Achieving universal primary education, promoting gender equality and empowering women, reducing child mortality rates, improving maternal health, combating HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases, ensuring environmental sustainability, and developing a global partnership for development.