Water Key to MDGs
By Dr Arvind Kumar
Recently concluded World Water Week, held in Stockholm, has drawn attention to water as means of achieving the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) on alleviating poverty and hunger by 2015. The MDGs were agreed in 2000 and include halving by 2015 the number of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation. But the Stockholm Statement stresses that in addition to these specific water-related MDGs, water is a core cross-cutting element for reaching every other development goal. Access to water and sanitation is a prerequisite for ending poverty and hunger, achieving gender equality and improving health and environmental sustainability, and should therefore be put higher on the agenda.
The statement calls for improved water management to avoid drastic increases in hunger caused by more floods and drought, and says access to water and sanitation is vital to increasing women’s opportunities to work and participate in society. In particular, the statement urges the upcoming UN summit to improve international commitments made by all governments on the provision of sanitation and water for all, given that a “five-year drive on sanitation […] is seriously lagging behind”.
