While we open the tap, an almost trivial gesture, global finance bets on the future of thirst.
Since 2020 the water has been listed on the stock exchange: an essential good for life, whose growing scarcity has transformed it into an asset to invest in, just like gold. But this abstract financial reality clashes with the concrete and daily drama of billions of people.
To tell it are not projections, but the numbers of the new UNICEF/WHO report “progress in accessing drinking water and toilets in the 2000-2024 houses”: 2.1 billion people who cannot drink from a safe source are not to drink; 3.4 billion those without a dignified bath; 1.7 billion those who cannot even wash their hands at home.
Launched during the World Water Week, the document is a severe accusation act: the promise to guarantee all these rights by 2030 is dangerously out of course.
The victims of inequality
The report shows that the lack of access to essential services is not accidental, but follows precise lines of social and economic fracture. People who live in low -income countries, in fragile contexts, in rural communities and ethnic minorities are those that suffer the greatest disparities. A inhabitant of a less developed country has a more than double probability of not having basic drinking water and more than triple of not having access to hygiene structures.
This inequality has a particularly severe impact on women and girls, which bring the heaviest load of this crisis. In most countries with available data, they are the main responsible for the water collection, an activity that in many regions of sub -Saharan Africa and Asia requires more than 30 minutes a day. This burden translates into less time for education and greater safety risks. “These inequalities are particularly evident for girls, who often have to take on the weight of the water collection and face further obstacles during the menstrual cycle,” said Cecilia Scharp, director for water and unicef toilets.
The data confirm that teenagers (15-19 years) are less likely to participate in school, work and social activities during their cycle.
A race against time: the 2030 goals move away
Five years after the deadline set by the 2030 agenda, the report certifies an almost unbridgeable delay. Reaching the universal coverage of services managed safely “it seems more and more unreachable”. To center the goal on safe drinking water, the global progress rate should increase eight times. For the toilets, an acceleration of six times would be needed.
Even the most basic objectives, such as the elimination of outdoor defecation, still practiced by 354 million people, will require significant acceleration. At this rate, the promise to guarantee water and toilets to each child is becoming a mirage, a warning to have to “act faster and more courage to reach those who need it most”.
“Water and toilets are not privileges, but fundamental human rights,” said the WHO Dr. Ruediger Krech. His words reiterate the heart of the problem: it is not a mere infrastructure deficit, but the denial of an essential right to health, dignity and future of a quarter of the world population.
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