The Water Crisis:

Some 1.1 billion,  more than one-sixth of the world’s population lack access to safe water.

Over 1 billion people lack access to safe water. Over 2.4 billion people lack access to adequate sanitation. 2 out of 3 people will be living with water shortages by 2025. More than 2.2 million people, mostly children, die each year from water related diseases. The majority of these people live in Asia and Africa, where less than one-half of all Asians have access to improved sanitation and two out of five Africans lack improved water supply.

 The current best estimates of water-related deaths fall between 2 and 5 million deaths per year. The vast majority of those dying from water-related disease are small children struck by virulent but preventable diarrhoeal diseases. Worldwide, the consumption of water is doubling every 20 years, at more than twice the rate of the increase in human population. Today according to the UN, 31 countries are facing water stress and scarcity. By the year 2025, as much as two-thirds of the world's population will be living in conditions of serious water shortage and one-third will be living in conditions of absolute water scarcity.

 Globally water related diseases are the single largest cause of sickness and death. A major contributor to this unclean water is the lack of adequate sanitation. The absence of adequate sanitation causes immeasurable problems, the most devastating of which is the creation of an environment in which debilitating and life-threatening diseases flourish. Every 15 seconds a child dies from waterborne diseases.

More than one-sixth of the world’s population lack access to safe water making them vulnerable to diarrohea, cholera, dysentery, intestinal worms, trachoma, schistosomiasis, dracunculiasis and many other potentially lethal water-borne diseases resulting in not hundreds or thousands but million of deaths every year.

Some of the deadly water-borne diseases are:

Diarrhoea: About 4 billion cases of diarrhoea per year cause 2.2 million deaths, mostly among children under five.

Intestinal worms: infect about 10% of the population of the developing world and, depending upon the severity of the infection, lead to malnutrition, anaemia or retarded growth.

Trachoma: About 6 million people are blind from trachoma. Studies found that providing adequate water supply could reduce the infection rate by 25%.

Schistosomiasis: About 200 million people are infected with schistosomiasis, of whom 20 million suffer severe consequences. Studies found that adequate water supply and sanitation could reduce infection rate by 77%.

Cholera: is a world-wide problem, especially in emergency situations, that can be prevented by access to safe drinking water, sanitation and good hygiene behaviours.

The world's poorest people often move to cities in search of employment; this frequently means living in shanty towns. Water consumption and sanitation needs of the urban poor are often sidelined. Poorer areas of cities are often left with no water supply or sanitation. Consequently, in many urban areas poor people are forced to pay exorbitant prices for low-quality dirty water from small-scale private vendors.

Significant discrepancies between rural and urban services continue to contribute to the burdened life in rural areas. In Africa, Asia, and Latin America and Caribbean, almost 1 billion people in rural areas are without access to improved water supply. On the other hand, the world-wide urbanization causes a great number of people to live in informal, overcrowded suburban settlements where coverage remains especially low.

Extreme poverty and unacceptable living conditions in these settlements are an affront to human dignity and have become an alarming problem.

As competition for access to water resources increases, the most vulnerable have the least influence. Agencies responsible for the management and allocation of water are prone to conscious or unconscious bias towards the rich and powerful. Lack of infrastructure often means no safe water or adequate sanitation services are provided for poor rural and urban communities.

In addition to the effects of poor sanitation water is also polluted by industry and agriculture. The results of this combined pollution cause disease on a huge scale. The poor are usually the first to suffer from pollution as they are often forced to use water from downstream sources and do not have the access to adequate sanitation that the rich enjoy. Contaminated water spreads bacteria and parasites, for example causing diarrhoea, and carries water-based hosts, such as guinea worms. 

Globally there is a huge shortfall in finance and investment in the water sector, both for investment in new operations and for maintenance of existing infrastructures. This lack of investment and the absence of effective planning and management of scarce water resources are often the root causes of water shortages and inadequate sanitation. Governments lack the will, or the capacity, to develop and integrate sustainable water management policies.