imcsap.org – World Water Day 2023 is about accelerating change to solve the water and sanitation crisis. Dysfunction throughout the water cycle is undermining progress on all major global issues, from health to hunger, gender equality to jobs, industry education, disasters to peace. Back in 2015, the world committed to Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6 as part of the 2030 Agenda – the promise that everyone would have safely managed water and sanitation by 2030. 

Right now, we are seriously off-track. Billions of people and countless schools, businesses, healthcare centers, farms, and factories are being held back because their human rights to water and sanitation still need to be fulfilled. When we talk about the global water and sanitation crisis, it cannot be easy to visualize it. Facts and statistics are essential, but they can be impersonal and fail to motivate people to take Action. 

What would it look like if we applied the global crisis to a community of just 100 people? 

Twenty-five people would have to collect unsafe water from a stream or pond, often far away, or queue for hours and pay a high price to a vendor. The water would regularly make them so sick they couldn’t go to work or school. Death from entirely preventable diseases, like cholera and typhoid, would be a constant danger. 

Twenty-two people would have no choice but to go to the toilet in the streets, bushes, or fields or to use unhygienic and dysfunctional latrines. Women and girls would suffer the most as they would be more vulnerable to abuse and attack and unable to manage their menstrual health properly. 

Forty-four people would live in areas vulnerable to disease because their wastewater and feces flowed back into nature without being treated. The other 56 people, having safe toilets connected to systems that safely treat waste, would need to be made aware of how vital their sanitation services are to protecting their health and well-being. Around half of the wetlands around the community would have been lost in recent decades, increasing the risk of flooding. 

Twenty-two people would either work in or receive care at a healthcare facility with no basic water service, placing them at heightened risk of infectious diseases. Many of those will receive treatment for illnesses that people could have prevented with safe water and sanitation in the community. Agriculture and industry nearby would take over 80 percent of the available water. 

Due to climate change, droughts would increasingly hit water resources and food supply. Floods would threaten to destroy water and sanitation facilities and contaminate water resources. The community would be unlikely to have a cooperation agreement with neighboring communities to share and protect water. The community’s poorest and most vulnerable members, who would be disproportionately affected by the crisis, would face the most significant struggle to get the attention of authorities to improve their water and sanitation services. 

Therefore, on the celebration of World Water Day on the 22nd of  March, IMCS Pax Romana Asia Pacific – Advocacy and Campaign Commission shared and reflected on these facts. Nowadays, everything is about technology and machines, the infrastructure of modern and digital life, and forget about the necessities of life, including the need to water. The facts and research on world water urge us young people to start action to save the world.