Depressing data
The achievements of Habitat I have been limited. This was so because of the economic crisis of the '805. According to official statistics, at least 280 million urban and more than 800 million rural dwellers lacked safe and sufficient drinking water supply till 1994. Besides, at least 590 million of the urban and more than 2 billion of the rural population lacked adequate provision for sanitation.
This is extremely discouraging since the priority agreed to at Habitat I was adequate drinking water and sanitation for all. This demand finally led to the UN declaring the 19805 as the International Drinking Water Supply and Sanitation Decade, aiming to virtually eliminate the problem by 1990.
What is more depressing is that official statistics considerably understate the problem. Governments are unsure about the criteria in defining what is adequate water and sanitation. Although the Government of India has done more than most other governments in supplying safe drinking water to its citizens, does more than 85 per cent of the population have access to an adequate amount of drinking water located within convenient distance of the user's dwelling? And does more than half of the urban population really have access to adequate sanitation?
Related Content
- Gendered prevalence of non-communicable diseases in India’s older adults
- Protect the Promise: 2022 progress report on the every woman every child global strategy for women’s, children’s and adolescents’ health (2016–2030)
- Climate afflictions
- World energy trilemma index 2021
- Eighth Ethiopia economic update: ensuring resilient recovery from COVID-19
- Weather shocks, agricultural productivity and farmer suicides in India