IN PICS | UN report sounds alarm bells over lack of clean drinking water

According to the UN World Water Development Report 2023 released on Tuesday (March 21), about 10 per cent of the 'world's population lives in a country where water stress has reached a high or critical level'. 

Surprisingly enough, the UN 2023 Water Conference is the first summit concerning water to take place in over 50 years. Before this, the last high-level conference was held in 1977 in Mar del Plata, Argentina.

The report cites overconsumption and pollution as the two major reasons for water scarcity becoming endemic. It added that heating of the planet due to global warming exacerbated seasonal water shortages, even in areas of abundant water as well as parched. 

Richard Connor, lead author of the report took a pessimistic view of things and said if nothing was done, the situation will remain the same and water disparity will increase. 

"If nothing is done, it will be a business-as-usual scenario - it will keep on being between 40 per cent and 50 per cent of the population of the world that does not have access to sanitation and roughly 20-25 per cent of the world will not have access to safe water supply,"

Connor added that to ensure all people on the planet have clean water and sanitiation facilities by 2030, it will require almost $600 billion to $1 trillion a year in funding. 

According to the report, water use has been increasing globally by roughly 1% per year over the last 40 years “and is expected to grow at a similar rate through to 2050