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courtesy of the independent, a shocking report which seems to indicate that the world's poor are no better off despite all the promises from the politicians.
A global plan to halve by 2015 the number of people without access to sanitation is failing so badly that some of the world's poorest countries will not have this basic necessity for another 200 years.
Almost 900 million people worldwide live without access to clean water and more than two and a half billion people live without adequate sanitation - more than a third of the world's population. But, says the charity WaterAid in a report due out this week, aid given to solve this problem is not reaching the people who need it most.
Ninety per cent of people without access to sanitation facilities live in just 29 countries, with the highest absolute numbers in India and China. But new research by the charity shows that the top 10 recipients of water, sanitation and hygiene aid ("Wash") over the past decade have not been those in greatest need, but largely middle- or upper-middle-income countries.
Barbara Frost, chief executive of WaterAid, said: "Historical and strategic interests still influence where aid is going, rather than the countries and communities where poverty and need is highest. Over the past decade, least developed countries have received only 30 per cent of aid for water, sanitation and hygiene. With an increase of aid focused on the poorest countries in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, hundreds of thousands of lives could be saved every year, and a major step will have been taken towards ending the global water and sanitation crisis."
