25 September 2008
Millions of people in Africa and Asia will be provided with clean drinking water and decent sanitation thanks to a new joint initiative from the UK and the Netherlands.
Announcing UK support for the "Framework for Action", DFID Minister Gareth Thomas spoke of the need for greater progress towards the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) on water and sanitation. Describing water access and sanitation conditions in some parts of the world as "nothing short of shameful", he emphasised the importance of more accountability within the water sector and stricter monitoring at the global level.
The initiative, which was launched yesterday (24 September) at the United Nations in New York, will allocate £5 million (6 million Euros) over five years to an annual report and high level meeting focused on reviewing progress. The first of these meetings will be held in 2009 and convened by Unicef.
A further joint Dutch-UK commitment was made of £85 million (100 million Euros) over the same period to help up to 20 poor countries develop and implement their own national water and sanitation plans.
The two announcements were made as part of a week of action at the UN aimed at accelerating international efforts towards meeting the MDG targets. MDG 7 calls for the proportion of people without access to safe water and sanitation to be halved by 2015.
Currently, 2.5 billion people in Africa and Asia lack adequate sanitation and almost 900 million go without safe drinking water. At the current rate Sub-Saharan Africa will only meet the water target by 2025, and the goal on sanitation by 2108.
It is hoped that this new initiative will encourage more action from other European Union Member States on these crucial development issues.
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