Water borne diseases
The main health problem confronting the world today comes from exposure to organisms that cause water borne diseases. Discussions and exchange of experiences on increasing access to sanitation and drinking water of good quality constantly feature at the World Water Week. However, the nature of the deliberations is changing. Great efforts have been made to provide decision makers with more targeted data and information. Two main messages are emerging. The first is that there are enormous cost implications in terms of human suffering and lost opportunities from not providing people with access to adequate sanitation and improved drinking water. The second is that the water world has the knowledge and the skills to make a great difference. By applying the current knowledge and experience, one fifth of all child deaths, equalling more than 2.2 million per year, could be prevented. Apart from welfare gains that are hard to quantify, the economic benefits of savings in health care and time, together with increases in productive capacity that can accrue from investments in basic drinking water and sanitation are between three and 34 times higher than the costs. Investing in drinking-water quality once basic access to drinking water has been established can lead to economic benefits of between 5 to 60 times the costs. The economic impacts of poor sanitation have been estimated to cost e.g. Cambodia 7.2 per cent of its GDP. Really, no country and no Minister of Finance can afford to ignore these concrete, tangible and profound human facts. In addition to being a human right and a moral obligation, universal access to water and sanitation makes absolute economic sense. The next step for the World Water Week discussions on this topic is therefore to unpack the discussions relating to the lack of political will and finding additional ways of channelling these positive messages to global, national and local decision makers. There is also an opportunity to engage professionals from spheres such as political science and marketing in this debate to complement the high level of knowledge and skills within the water and sanitation community.
