BMA Q and A: water poverty and the post-2015 development agenda

  BMA international committee chair Terry John answers your questions The BMA has been a member of End Water Poverty (EWP) since 2007. What are the aims of the campaign? End Water Poverty is a global coalition that is calling for action to end the crisis in water and sanitation. In 2016, more than 650 million people still don’t have clean, safe water and 2.3 billion people don’t have access to adequate sanitation — in fact, more people have mobile phones than have access to a safe toilet. As a result, more than 500,000 children die every year from diarrhoea caused by unsafe water and poor sanitation, more than the child deaths in any given year from tuberculosis, AIDS and meningitis combined. Despite this, the crisis was given low-priority status by international agencies, a situation which continued for many years. But we have begun to see changes. The recognition of the human rights to water and sanitation by the United Nations in 2010 was followed by a number of global agreements whereby decision-makers committed to tackle the crisis. In response to this change in attitudes, EWP launched ‘Keep Your Promises’, a campaign that focuses on holding Governments to account and ensuring that the human rights to water and sanitation are realised.   March 2016 is Water Action Month. Can you tell us more about it and how to get involved? Coming under the Keep Your Promises campaign, Water Action Month will be EWP’s biggest mobili...
Source: BMA News - Category: UK Health Source Type: news