It is safe to say that a world without safe, abundant and easily accessible water is hard for most Americans to imagine -- and one they would find hard to tolerate. The same goes for life without private, relatively clean places in which to go to the toilet.
Around the world, however, 1.1 billion people get their water from rivers and ponds, or from springs and wells open to the air and subject to contamination. More than twice as many -- 2.5 billion people in all -- use public latrines or the whole outdoors as their bathroom.
Access to safe water and basic sanitation were among the "Millennium Development Goals" that 189 heads of state from around the world adopted in 2000. Specifically, they pledged that by 2015 they would reduce by at least half the proportion of people living without those two essential comforts of civilization. The year 1990 was taken as the baseline against which progress would be measured.
Reaching those goals would have profound effects on the world's poorest people -- effects far beyond better health, the most obvious one. The World Health Organization and UNICEF recently issued a report on the progress achieved as of 2002, the midpoint in that 25-year period.
In 1990, 77 percent of the globe's population had access to indoor running water, piped public taps, protected wells and rainwater. In 2002, 83 percent of people had those "improved" drinking water sources. Progress is on track to meet the target of 89 percent by 2015.
Equally impressive is the fact that 52 percent of people have the best of the "improvements": household running water.
"More than half the population of the planet uses piped water at home. That is a stunning achievement," said Jamie Bartram, coordinator of WHO's water, sanitation and health program.
The sanitation news is less encouraging.
"Improved" forms of sanitation include not only flush toilets, but also latrines that are used by only one household, and are ventilated and designed to isolate waste from the surrounding environment. In 1990, 49 percent of people used such facilities. By 2002, that had increased to just 58 percent.
Unless progress accelerates, the target of 75 percent coverage will not be met, with the effort falling short by about half a billion people.
"The gap between the haves and the have-nots is widening," said Vanessa Tobin, UNICEF's chief of sanitation. "We need to have local solutions that are sustainable and affordable."
China and India together have the most people without safe water or improved sanitation. In the case of sanitation, 1.5 billion people in those two countries do without. Among regions, though, Africa is worst off. The entire sub-Saharan part of that continent today is only somewhat ahead of the United States of 1900.
In that year, 42 percent of Americans had access to public water and 29 percent to sewage systems. Among Africans in 2002, 58 percent had access to improved water (only 16 percent with household connections), and 36 percent had improved sanitation.
Although clean water and toilets have many benefits, some are not entirely obvious.
