The world has met the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) target of halving the proportion of people without access to safe drinking water, well in advance of the MDG 2015 deadline, according to a report issued on March 6, 2012 by UNICEF and the World Health Organization (WHO). Between 1990 and 2010, over two billion people gained access to improved drinking water sources, such as piped supplies and protected wells.
Inadequate sanitation and its devastating effects on the world’s poor comprise humanity’s most urgent, yet solvable crisis, according to international leaders and experts who convened at the 2009 World Water Week in Stockholm.