STOCKHOLM, 16 August 2009: Access to water is becoming more challenging every year due to a rising water demand and unreliable availability. With almost one billion people lacking access to safe water the annual World Water Week (16-22 August) serves as a forum for global leaders and experts to share innovative solutions on water-related issues and its impact on poverty, health, education, gender equality and the environment.
Hosted and organized by the Stockholm International Water Institute, this weeklong event aims to build capacity, promote partnerships, and review progress achieved. The theme of World Water Week 2009 is: “Responding to Global Changes: Accessing Water for the Common Good – With a Special Focus on Transboundary Waters”.
UNICEF is hosting and participating in several seminars, workshops and side events including: (i) Unite for children – Water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) in Schools, (ii) Diarrhoea: What’s WASH Got to Do with it?, (iii) Safe Water Services in Post-conflict and Post-disaster Contexts (iv) Sanitation Promotion 101: What are the Various Promotional Approaches We Use?
Access to safe drinking water, adequate sanitation and improved hygiene is crucial for infants and children to get the best possible start in life.
For school-aged children water supply, sanitation and hygiene facilities in schools have a profound impact on school attendance and retention. An easily accessible water source close to the home will free up girls from the often laborious, and time consuming task of fetching water thus allowing them to take their rightful place in the classroom.
Every day approximately 4.500 children die before their fifth birthday due to unsafe water, sanitation and hygiene. Simple, affordable and effective interventions such as hand washing with soap and water help reduce the incidence diarrhea morbidity – the second biggest killer of children under five – by up to 47 per cent.
In recent years the global economic turmoil along with an increase in emergencies has left millions, particularly women and children, without basic services including access to water and adequate sanitation and hygiene. Climate change will further exacerbate this situation.
The United Nations declared 2005-2015 the International Decade for Action ‘Water for Life’ realizing that achieving the millennium development targets for water and sanitation have wide-ranging benefits including yielding greater socio-economic returns via improved health, a productive workforce, and educated children.
For more information: worldwaterweek.org
Læs hele artiklen: www.unicef.org
