Glass Half Empty
For Fifth Of
Worlds Children
By i-Newswire
22 March, 2005
i-Newswire
At
least 20 litres of safe water per day ( about two buckets ) are essential
to enable children to drink, wash hands of disease-bearing dirt and
cook a simple meal. Without it, children become easy prey for a host
of life-threatening afflictions carried in dirty water and on unwashed
fingers.
According to UNICEFs
State of the Worlds Children 2005, 21% of children in developing
countries are severely water deprived, living without a safe water source
within a fifteen minute walk of their homes. In addition, a staggering
2.6 billion people do not have access to basic sanitation. These deprivations
cost many their lives and account for at least 1.6 out of 11 million
preventable child deaths every year.
Our failure
to provide a mere two buckets of safe water a day to every child is
an affront to human conscience, Bellamy said. Far too many
are dying as a result of our inertia, and their deaths are being met
with a resounding silence.
This year ushers
in the International Decade for Action, Water for Life -
an international drive to bring safe water and basic sanitation into
homes and schools worldwide. Bringing these services to the poorest
families is at the centre of efforts to meet many of the 2015 Millennium
Development Goals ( MDGs ) - particularly MDG Four, which calls for
the world to slash preventable child deaths by at least two-thirds.
Everywhere, low
availability of safe water goes hand-in-hand with high child mortality
rates. In Sub-Saharan Africa, where one in five children will never
see their fifth birthday, 43 per cent of children drink unsafe water,
risking disease and death with every sip.
The impact of unsafe
drinking water, poor sanitation and inadequate hygiene on child health
goes far beyond the 4000 children dying daily from water-borne diseases
like diarrhoea and typhoid. Many millions more are pushed to the brink
of survival by repeated bouts of illness.
Children forced
to drink unsafe water and live in unsanitary conditions cannot thrive,
Bellamy said. But when their lives are protected, their families
are strengthened and their own children are likely to be born with better
prospects. Its the surest, shortest, smartest route to a more
hopeful future.
Since 1990, the world has seen a surge in global use of safe water
from 77 to 83 per cent, an extra one billion people. But there is still
a long way to go. 1.1 billion people are still drinking water from unsafe
sources like unprotected wells, rivers, ponds and street vendors. And
with demand for water higher than ever, the scales are tipped against
the poorest when deciding where supplies will go.
An average Canadian,
for example uses over six times as much water per day as an average
Indian, and over thirty times as much as a rural villager in Kenya (
326 litres vs. 53 litres vs. 10 litres ). And within countries there
are equally dramatic disparities, often between urban and rural areas.
In urban Indonesia, access to safe water averages at 89 per cent, while
in rural areas it was only 69 per cent or lower before the tsunami struck.
When children have
access to sustainable supplies of safe water, basic sanitation and hygiene
education, the results can be dramatic, sending mortality and poverty
reduction programmes into high gear. Childrens health improves
and school attendance rises. We begin to see the end of social inequities,
where girls bear the burden of carrying the familys water. These
benefits can start to arrive though something as basic as a hand-pump
well at a school, or a home-based water purification system costing
just a few cents a packet. In the tsunami zone, these simple interventions
have restored a reliable safe water supply to hundreds of thousands
of people.
But in other parts
of the world, the poorest communities are still falling far under the
political radar, with help coming sporadically or else not at all. Without
the express commitment of governments at the national and local level
to enable communities, village water supply systems are not maintained,
or are simply not built.
Ensuring water services
are shared equally between rich and poor alike requires a strong chain
of political accountability, linking fair policies with good management.
But Bellamy said
that deprivations will continue as long as water access is seen as a
privilege instead of an inviolable right. She said a shift in global
perspective could be a powerful tool for reducing water-related mortality
and alleviating its devastating economic and social impact.
Our unspoken
belief that child deaths are inevitable casualties of poverty is both
dangerous and wrong, she said. These deaths are the very
things fueling poverty, locking communities into cycles of disease,
deprivation and hopelessness. There is nothing to stop us from breaking
these cycles. The barriers are all in the mind.
Throughout the Decade
of Water for Life, UNICEF will strongly support partners, including
governments, civil society organisations and communities in over 90
countries to achieve safe water supply and basic sanitation in homes
and schools, promote hygiene awareness and strengthen national policies
to protect the poorest children. UNICEF continues to lead the global
relief drive to bring water and sanitation to families in the tsunami
zone and in other emergency situations.
* * * *
For further information,
please contact:
Oliver Phillips,
UNICEF New York, +1 212 326 7583, [email protected]
Erica Kochi, UNICEF NEW York, 1 212 326 7785, [email protected]