Put the champagne away. Hundreds of millions of people do not, after all, have access to safe drinking water. The new millennium鈥檚 first great 鈥渕ission accomplished鈥� for public health turns out to have been a figment of the United Nations鈥檚 imagination.
In 2012, the World 午夜福利1000集合 Organization (WHO) declared that a UN Millennium Development Goal 鈥� to 鈥渉alve the proportion of people without access to safe drinking water鈥� between 1990 and 2015 鈥� had been met. UN secretary-general Ban Ki-Moon hailed 鈥溾��.
But now the WHO鈥檚 official journal has admitted that the claim does not stand up.
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The problem is that we don鈥檛 have global data on the cleanliness of drinking water, say of the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta and his colleagues. So the WHO redefined the health goal as an engineering goal: to halve those without access to 鈥渋mproved鈥� water supplies.
Unclear water
In practice, that encouraged governments to meet the targets by delivering the same dirty water in new pipes. People receiving dirty river water one hour a day down a pipe were counted as having water that was as safe as a householder in London or New York.
鈥淚t is quite unreasonable to assume that 鈥榠mproved鈥� equals 鈥榮afe鈥�,鈥� says Brown. 鈥淭he WHO has been silent about this.鈥�
New Scientist reported at the time that some public health professionals did not believe that the UN had met its goal. An earlier study had estimated that 50,000 African boreholes, pumps and wells were lying derelict.
Since 2012, evidence has accumulated that many piped water supplies installed to meet the target are unsafe. For instance, of the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill reported last year that, in the Dominican Republic, 鈥�47 per cent of improved drinking water sources were of high to very-high risk water quality, and therefore unsafe for drinking鈥� ().
Still off target
As many as , a quarter of the world鈥檚 population, may lack access to safe water, more than double the 783 million estimated by the WHO. Sobsey has estimated that the world is still 700 million off meeting the UN goal.
鈥淲e are well aware of the issues raised in the new paper,鈥� says Bruce Gordon, the WHO鈥檚 head of water and sanitation for health. 鈥淭he Millennium Development Goal targets as measured by improved sources have been met, but many more [people] are likely to lack access to reliable safe water.鈥�
The WHO hopes to do better monitoring in future, using new low-cost kits for .
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