The United Nation’s health and children’s agencies said that a full one in four people globally were without access to safely-managed drinking water last year, with over 100 million people remaining reliant on drinking surface water – or from rivers, ponds, and canals.
The World Health Organization and UNICEF said lagging water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) services were leaving billions at greater risk of disease, as the world remains far off track to reach a target of achieving universal coverage of such services by 2030.
Instead, that goal “is increasingly out of reach,” they warned.
“Water, sanitation, and hygiene are not privileges: they are basic human rights,” said WHO’s environment chief Ruediger Krech.
The report looked at five levels of drinking water services. Safely managed, the highest, is defined as drinking water accessible on the premises, available when needed, and free from fecal and priority chemical contamination. The four levels below are basic (improved water taking less than 30 minutes to access), limited (improved, but taking longer), unimproved (for example, from an unprotected well or spring), and the last is surface water.
Since 2015, 961 million people have gained access to safely-managed drinking water, with coverage rising from 68 percent to 74 percent, the report said.
Of the 2.1 billion people last year still lacking safely managed drinking water services, 106 million used surface water – a decrease of 61 million over the past decade. The number of countries that have eliminated the use of surface water for drinking has decreased from 142 in 2015 to 154 in 2024.
As for sanitation, 1.2 billion people have gained access to safely managed sanitation services since 2015, with coverage rising from 48 percent to 58 percent. These are defined as improved facilities that are not shared with other households, and where excreta are safely disposed of in situ or removed and treated off site.
“When children lack access to safe water, sanitation, and hygiene, their health, education, and futures are put at risk,” warned Cecilia Sharp, UN’s director for WASH.
The struggle to provide access to safely managed drinking water and sanitation services remains a challenge for developing countries like the Philippines. Although gains have been made, such as the declaration of more barangays as zero open defecation status, many still remain. In terms of safe drinking water, what comes from our taps is still mostly far from drinkable, and that is something that the water districts and government entities have to work on if Filipinos are to consider that goal checked.
Just because parts of the world are failing to reach the target, it should be no excuse for us to also fail.*
