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STORY: WHO / WATER AND SANITATION
TRT: 2.11
SOURCE: WHO / FILE
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS
DATELINE: 8 MAY 2014, GENEVA, SWITZERLAND / FILE
8 MAY 2014, GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
1. Close up, Bruce Gordon looking at the report
2. SOUNDBITE (English) Bruce Gordon, Acting Coordinator, Water, Sanitation and Health, WHO Department of Public Health, Environmental and Social Determinants of Health:
“Eight out of ten people without access to an improved water source are still living in rural areas and within urban areas. We are also seeing with drinking water, we are seeing many of the poor people in cities have no choice but to access water in ad-hoc ways, through pay-per-go kiosks, while the wealthy are able to access their water through a piped into the home system.”
FILE – WHO - OCTOBER 2011, PAKISTAN
3. Various shots, urban home without running water
8 MAY 2014, GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
4. SOUNDBITE (English) Bruce Gordon, Acting Coordinator, Water, Sanitation and Health, WHO Department of Public Health, Environmental and Social Determinants of Health:
“We are tremendously concerned with sanitation. We are seeing that progress seems to be stuck at about 2.5 billion people, which we saw in the last report as well. But more concerning is that one billion people of those 2.5 have no choice but to openly defecate. So these are people going to the bathroom in field, in bushes, along gutters, in roadsides, which is really causing a health hazard, not only to themselves, but to the community. So we are concerned about the health implications of that.”
FILE – WHO: OCTOBER 2011, PAKISTAN
5. Various shots, collective toilets in street
8 MAY 2014, GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
6. SOUNDBITE (English) Bruce Gordon, Acting Coordinator, Water, Sanitation and Health, WHO Department of Public Health, Environmental and Social Determinants of Health:
“Overall, we have got to do something about these populations that are hidden in the corners, about the vulnerable and the marginalized. So unless countries start putting together monitoring processes to understand where people are getting their water and where they aren’t? Who is getting them? Are finances going in the right direction?”
FILE – WHO: NOVEMBER 2011, TOGO
7. Wide shot, community point for supply of safe drinking water
8. Close up, faucet releasing fresh water
8 MAY 2014, GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
9. SOUNDBITE (English) Bruce Gordon, Acting Coordinator, Water, Sanitation and Health, WHO Department of Public Health, Environmental and Social Determinants of Health:
“So we enhance monitoring, because that is the only way we can target action in the right areas. We can’t leave these remaining people without access into the foreseeable future.”
FILE – WHO: NOVEMBER 2011, SUDAN
10. Various shots, women and children getting safe drinking water
11. Various shots, WHO team monitoring quality of water
A new WHO and UNICEF report shows that since 1990, almost 2 billion people globally have gained access to improved water and sanitation and 2.3 billion have gained access to drinking-water from improved sources.
The report, entitled Progress on drinking water and sanitation: 2014 update, also highlights a narrowing disparity in access to cleaner water and better sanitation between rural and urban areas.
In 1990, 95 percent people in urban areas could drink improved water, compared with 62 percnt people in rural ones. By 2012, 96 percent people living in towns and 82 percent of those in rural areas had access to improved water.
In an interview in Geneva, the WHO Acting Coordinator for Water, Sanitation and Health Bruce Gordon said “eight out of ten people without access to an improved water source are still living in rural areas and within urban areas we are also seeing with drinking water, we are seeing many of the poor people in cities have no choice but to access water in ad-hoc ways, through pay-per-go kiosks, while the wealthy are able to access their water through a piped into the home system.”
Despite the progress, sharp geographic, socio-cultural, and economic inequalities in access to improved drinking water and sanitation facilities still persist around the world.
Gordon said “we are tremendously concerned with sanitation. We are seeing that progress seems to be stuck at about 2.5 billion people, which we saw in the last report as well. But more concerning is that one billion people of those 2.5 have no choice but to openly defecate. So these are people going to the bathroom in field, in bushes, along gutters, in roadsides, which is really causing a health hazard, not only to themselves, but to the community. So we are concerned about the health implications of that.”
In addition to the disparities between urban and rural areas, there are often also striking differences in access within towns and cities. People living in low-income, informal or illegal settlements or on the outskirts of cities or small towns are less likely to have access to an improved water supply or better sanitation.
The WHO expert stressed “overall, we have got to do something about these populations that are hidden in the corners, about the vulnerable and the marginalized. So unless countries start putting together monitoring processes to understand where people are getting their water and where they aren’t? Who is getting them? Are finances going in the right direction?.”
He added “so we enhance monitoring, because that is the only way we can target action in the right areas. We can’t leave these remaining people without access into the foreseeable future.”
Poor sanitation and contaminated water are linked to transmission of diseases such as cholera, diarrhoea, dysentery, hepatitis A, and typhoid. In addition, inadequate or absent water and sanitation services in health care facilities put already vulnerable patients at additional risk of infection and disease.
The report presents estimates for 1990-2012 and is based on data from nationally representative household surveys and censuses for the same period. It reveals that by 2012, 116 countries had met the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) target for drinking water, 77 had met the MDG target for sanitation and 56 countries had met both targets. MDG 7.C aims to halve, by 2015, the proportion of the population without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation.
