Research

Approximately two and a half billion people in the world have no access to improved sanitation including 1.2 billion people who have no facilities at all and are forced to open defecation (UNICEF: Water, Sanitation and Hygiene, 2010) In third world countries sanitation coverage is really low compared to everywhere else such as South Africa and sub-Saharan Africa where only 2/3 of the people have no access to improved sanitation (UNICEF: Water, Sanitation and Hygiene, 2010) By 2025 the number of people affected from sanitation is expected to rise from 40% of the world’s population to 50% (Barry Mason, 2002)

Taking a specific country to focus on, we chose to base our research on South Africa. This country faces all sorts of problems and sanitation is on top of the list

 “Out of 55 countries in the world with domestic water use below 50 litres per person per day (the minimum requirement set by the World Health Organization), 35 are in Africa. Almost half of all Africans suffer from one of six main water-related diseases.” (Gumisai Mutume, 2004)

Water bodies in Africa are shrinking. The size of Lake Chad, for example, has fallen from 25,000 square kilometers during the 1960s to less than 3,000 square kilometres today, affecting more than 20 million people. (Gumisai Mutume, 2004)

Due to poor sanitation, the following diseases can happen to people such as:


 * diarrhoea;
 * cholera;
 * worms;
 * eye infections and skin diseases; and
 * increased risk for HIV/Aids-infected individuals (Sanitation for a healthy nation)

 

Take a look at the following graphs from Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP) for Water Supply and Sanitation;



As you can see sanitation and the use of drinking water have improved over the years. The number of improved sanitation and the use of drinking water have gone up and the unimproved have gone down since. Even though it has gone down there are still a lot of people who are in trouble.