Water - the precious liquid

It’s said that human beings as well as other forms of life on Earth will face a severe water shortage in the future. Some say that this could happen as soon as 2050. It’s in the backdrop of this looming water crisis that we commemorate World Water Day, on March 22.

The United Nations celebrations for World Water Day 2008 will be held on March 20. This year’s event will highlight issues on sanitation in accordance with the year being the International Year of Sanitation. People around the world are encouraged to celebrate the day to draw attention to the world’s sanitation challenge.

The goal is to raise awareness and to accelerate progress towards the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) target of reducing by half the proportion of the 2.6 billion people without access to basic sanitation by 2015. This number, which live without even basic sanitation, include almost one billion children. Every 20 seconds, a child dies as a result of poor sanitation.

That’s 1.5 million preventable deaths each year. Improved sanitation reduces diseases such as cholera, worms, diarrhoea, pneumonia and malnutrition, that cause disease and death in millions of people. Not only that, improved sanitation leads to economic growth and poverty reduction too.

Without improving sanitation, it won’t be possible to achieve the other Millennium Development Goals, to which the world has committed itself. Sanitation also enhances dignity, privacy and safety, especially for women and girls. It improves convenience and social status. Sanitation in schools enables children to remain in the educational system.

UN Water organises the annual World Water Day on March 22 and chooses the theme each year. The resolution to declare March 22 as World Day for Water was adopted by the UN General Assembly on December 22, 1992 and observing the day started in 1993.