As the 2015 deadline for achieving the Millennium Development Goals approaches, the water, sanitation and hygiene sector continues to face serious challenges that are hampering progress.
The world has met the MDG target for drinking water, but 748 million people still lack access to an improved drinking water source and 2.5 billion people are without access to a basic toilet. Sanitation is one of the most off track of all the MDGs, with the percentage of people with access to improved sanitation barely increasing since the MDGs were agreed 15 years ago.
Yet despite these considerable challenges, ambition is increasing. As negotiations for a new set of post-2015 global development goals move forward, there’s growing expectation that universal access to water and sanitation by 2030 will be a key pillar of a new framework to eradicate extreme poverty by the same date. Such international commitment would amount to a historic opportunity.