Millions of children still excluded from sanitation services

25 August 2015

UNICEF NZ: Hundreds of millions of children still excluded from improved water and sanitation services

World Water Week, 23-28 August, is an important milestone in which to celebrate successes made in accessing safe water, and to reinvigorate support to ensure these successes continue.

UNICEF plays a crucial role in increasing children’s access to water, sanitation and hygiene services and in 2014 helped 31.8 million people gain access to clean water.

2014 was a devastating year for children and during these times of crisis, UNICEF’s emergency responses benefited 18 million people with drinking water and over 4 million with sanitation efforts – that’s equal to reaching roughly the populations of London, New York City and Paris.

"The facts are very simple: every child has the right to water and sanitation," said UNICEF New Zealand Executive Director, Vivien Maidaborn. "There is enough freshwater on Earth to meet global demand and yet each day, 663 million people go without.

"In Africa alone, people spend 40 billion hours each year walking to collect water – many of these will be children who should be playing with their friends or learning in school."

For children especially, a lack of access to improved water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) systems places their health, safety, education and survival at risk.

Water and sanitation related diseases remain among the major causes of death in children under five; nearly 1,000 children die every day from diarrhoeal diseases linked to poor WASH conditions.

Though there is much work ahead, vast achievements can be made when the global community comes together for a common goal.

Over the last 15 years, billions have been reached with improved water and sanitation.

In 2010, a full five years ahead of schedule, the world met the Millennium Development Goal target on safe water.

Ms Maidaborn added, "In the next decade, it is estimated that extreme weather events – which are becoming more frequent and more intense as a consequence of climate change – are likely to affect 175 million children a year. We are already seeing the effects of this in our own backyard throughout the Pacific.

“As a result, UNICEF NZ is currently working in Kiribati, a nation that has begun to feel the extreme impact of climate change, to initiate a WASH in schools programme in order to bring clean water and sanitation to children on four outer islands.

“In order to guarantee continued positive progress, we need to ensure we are reaching the most vulnerable children so that they can have access to clean and safe water in line with their most basic rights,” Ms Maidaborn concluded.
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