GLAAS Report: Extreme weather events continue to hamper access to potable water, sanitation; urgent action needed: WHO

Source: The post is based on the article “Extreme weather events continue to hamper access to potable water, sanitation; urgent action needed: WHO” published in Down To Earth on 14th December 2022

What is the News?

The World Health Organization(WHO) and UN-Water have released the Global Analysis and Assessment of Sanitation and Drinking-Water(GLAAS) report.

What is the GLAAS Report?

The GLAAS 2022 report compiles new data on drinking-Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) from 121 countries and territories and 23 External Support Agencies(ESAs).

It serves as a global reference to inform commitments, priority-setting and actions during the second half of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and for the 2023 Conference for the Review of Implementation of the United Nations Decade for Action on Water and Sanitation (2018–2028).

What are the key findings of the GLAAS Report?

Human Resource for WASH Tasks: Less than one-third of countries reported maintaining enough human resources to manage essential Water, Sanitation and Hygiene(WASH) tasks.

Drinking water and Sanitation Targets: 45% of countries are on track to meet their drinking-water coverage targets, but only 25% are meeting their sanitation targets. More acceleration is needed to achieve national targets.

Inadequate resources: While WASH budgets in some countries have increased, a significant portion — more than 75% of them — reported having inadequate resources to carry out their WASH plans and objectives.

Climate Change and WASH: Most WASH policies and plans do not consider climate change threats to WASH services, nor do they take the climate resilience of WASH technology and management systems into account.

What are the recommendations given by the report?

Urgent action is required at global and local levels to ensure universal access to WASH in order to avert catastrophic effects of infectious diseases on the health of millions of people.

In many countries, progress must be accelerated to meet United Nations-mandated (UN) Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) six — ensuring universal access to water and sanitation by 2030.

Governments must also target underserved populations and settings – such as people living in poverty or in remote or hard-to-reach areas – to ensure they also have access to safe, sustainable WASH services.