20000315

70m living without clean water in Pakistan, says UN

ISLAMABAD: Half the world's population is living in unsanitary conditions with billions living without access to clean water, including millions in Pakistan, according to a UN-backed report.

A preliminary report, drawn up by the World Commission on Water for the 21st Century, and released here Tuesday, says three billion of the world's most deprived people live in squalor and misery without access to proper sanitation.

One billion of them have no access to safe water at all including 70 million in Pakistan. But the report says this does not have to be the case.

The commission says that everyone could have clean drinking water and improved sanitation facilities within 25 years if governments made water provision a priority.

It says access to water should be seen as a basic human right as well as a key factor in the fight against diseases such as typhoid and cholera.

UN water expert Brian Appleton says 5,000 children die needlessly every day from waterborne illnesses: "That's equivalent to 12 full Jumbo jets crashing every day" he says. "If 12 full Jumbo jets were crashing every day, the world would want to do something about it - they would want to find out why it was happening."

The UN is calling on governments to concentrate on community-based initiatives, which it says are more cost-effective and efficient than hi-tech centralised water-supply policies.

Such projects in India, Bolivia, Ethiopia and Tanzania have dramatically improved people's living conditions and health levels, it argues.

But, the UN warns, time is running out. Efforts to improve global hygiene are not keeping pace with the population explosion. If governments do not radically rethink their policies, the UN says, the world's water crisis will get worse.

The World Commission on Water for the 21st Century is sponsored by a number of UN agencies, and is chaired by Ismail Serageldin, vice-president of the World Bank.

The report is to be presented at the second world water forum in the Netherlands, starting on 17 March.

The report recommends the following to ameliorate the hardships: More than doubling annual investment in water supply to $180bn, with focus on sustainable use of water, letting private sector take the lead in providing water supplies, scrapping water subsidies that encourage waste and setting up Water Innovation Fund to foster smart ideas for water technology.-Internews