Water and sanitation governance

Almost 1 billion people lack clean drinking water. Another 2.4 billion people have no access to hygienic sanitation facilities; 1.2 billion lack any sanitation facilities at all. Each day, 5,000children die from preventable water and sanitation related diseases. Through the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs),the international community committed to halve the proportion of people without access to clean water and basic sanitation by 2015. While the world is on track to meet the water supply MDG, there are still major gaps in many regions and countries, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa. But the sanitation target could be missed by a staggering 700 million people. Meeting the MDG water and sanitation targets is more thana health and dignity issue. The evidence is compelling that achieving the water and sanitation goals would trigger a major leap forward in human development.