The UK Government has today missed an opportunity to help some of the world's poorest people, and tackle Africa's biggest child killer, as set out in their Coalition document last year.
Today's Department for International Development (DFID) aid review promises to target ill health, killer diseases and malnutrition; provide girls with an education and put wealth-creation at the heart of the Government's aid programmes.
However, despite concrete evidence showing that an integrated approach of the provision of water, sanitation and hygiene saves children's lives, increases girls' enrollment in school and enables economic growth, the government has not yet stepped up to the challenge.
WaterAid Director of Policy and Campaigns, Margaret Batty, said: "The Secretary of State once described water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) as 'the single most-effective development intervention for improving public health'.
"Yet, in promising to provide access to drinking water and improved sanitation to an equivalent number to the population of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland over the next four years, the Government is set to reach only one percent of the world's poorest people without access to these basic human rights."