World Water Day – held on 22 March every year since 1993 – raises awareness and inspires action to help the 2.2 billion people who are living today without access to safe water. At UNU-MERIT, we’re excited to share that we have three World Water Day (WWD) events coming up that all aim to raise awareness and inspire action around this year’s WWD theme, which is about accelerating change to solve the water and sanitation crisis. The first two of these events are virtual sid...
Water is not only critical for human life – it is also a precious economic, spiritual and cultural resource. In 2015, the UN General Assembly even recognised water as a human right. This newly minted human right is, however, under threat from trade and investment agreements, including the Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS). Now, wherever they operate, companies can sue governments for discrimination. This may sound reasonable, but there is already an overwhelming number of cases involving ...
A joint post by Praem Mehta and Katie Kuschminder The human rights violations and targeted violence against Rohingya communities in Rakhine State, Myanmar have forced over 687,000 people to flee to Bangladesh since 25 August 2017. As of 30 March 2018 there are now more than 898,000 Rohingya refugees living in overcrowded, inadequate camp conditions in Cox’s Bazar. The crisis is thus far from over. With the monsoon season imminent, heavy rains and flooding will increase the vulnerability of camp ...
A joint post by Rushva Parihar and Dorcas Mbuvi. … An estimated 2.4 billion people still do not have access to proper sanitation, of which about 1 billion still defecate in the open. These figures represent the enormous challenge of achieving Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6 and its specific target to “achieve access to adequate and equitable sanitation and hygiene for all and end open defecation” by 2030. Critically, reaching unserved populations at scale will require low-cost sanit...
A third of all humanity — around 2.4 billion people — have no access to adequate sanitation. Worldwide a billion people still defecate in the open. Poor sanitation increases the risk of disease and malnutrition, especially for women and children. Meanwhile, women and girls risk rape and abuse, because they have no toilet that offers privacy. World Toilet Day, held every 19 November, aims to raise awareness about the many people around the world who have no access to a toilet — ...
This article is part of UNU’s “17 Days, 17 Goals” series, featuring research and commentary in support of the United Nations Sustainable Development Summit, 25-27 September 2015 in New York City. Goal #6: Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all For universal sanitation coverage, the formulation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) represents a very positive step forward. It is a far cry from that of the Millennium Development Goals, where the issue o...
GLOBALLY each day almost 1000 children under 5 die from diarrhoea caused by contaminated water. More than 2.4 billion people – a third of all humanity – have no access to sanitation. And as populations grow, water is set to become a new source of danger, of conflict, given the rapid urban expansion of Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia. Meanwhile, as climate change accelerates, we are likely to see more extreme and frequent droughts, floods and typhoons. Again, people in emergi...
When it comes to water and sanitation, does self-supply let governments off the hook? Or do people simply need access, regardless of who supplies the service? A new, joint report by UNU-INWEH and UNU-MERIT explores a hybrid mechanism of microfinance for small community water and sanitation supplies. While access to drinking water and sanitation have been established as human rights since 2010, progress towards and beyond related national Millennium Development Goal targets has been slow, particu...