ABSTRACT
Although the Millennium Development Goal for water does not refer to sanitation and hygiene, these other two areas are as important for health and poverty reduction as is safe water. In 2000, some 1.1 billion people lacked access to safe water and 2.4 billion lacked access to adequate sanitation. Allowing for population growth, this means that access to adequate water is needed for an additional 1.5 billion people over the next fifteen years and to adequate sanitation for an additional 2.2 billion. This would represent about a doubling of the numbers who achieved access to safe water over the 1990s and about a trebling of the numbers who got access to adequate sanitation. No global data exist on those with inadequate knowledge of hygiene.
