Providing clean water and toilets in developing nations is the quickest way to eradicate poverty and improve health worldwide, a study by the UN University said on Sunday.
“Water problems, caused largely by an appalling absence of adequate toilets in many places, contribute tremendously to some of the world’s most punishing problems, foremost among them the inter-related afflictions of poor health and chronic poverty,” said Zafar Adeel, director of the UN University’s Canadian-based International Network on Water, Environment and Health, which prepared the study.
Drinking water and sanitation would pay for itself by saving cash spent on treating diseases while raising productivity lost to illness and create jobs, the study said.
More than 900 million people of about 6.7 billion on the planet lack access to safe drinking water and 2.5 billion live without proper sanitation, it said. Rising populations and climate change could aggravate stress on water supplies.
“Simply installing toilets where needed throughout the world and ensuring safe water supplies would do more to end crippling poverty and improve world health than any other measure,” the university said in a statement.
Founded in 1973, the UN University conducts research into global problems that are of concern to the UN and its agencies.
In 2002, the total number of deaths attributed to poor water, sanitation and hygiene was over 3.5 million, it said. About 94 percent of cases of diarrhea, which kills more than 1.4 million children a year, are preventable.
Simply building latrines in rural areas can help.
“There are a lot of community-based solutions that can create jobs,” Adeel said.
Estimates of the extra annual investments needed in water and sanitation ranged from about US$12 billion to $25 billion, he said.
Adeel said US$12 billion was comparable to amounts spent on pet food in North America.
And returns in terms of better health and productivity would be perhaps nine times the investments. Adeel predicted that the global financial crunch could dry up aid budgets, at least for a couple of years.
Halving the proportion of people living in the most extreme poverty by 2015 is the top goal of governments under the Millennium Development Goals.
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