Water for people.pdf - WHO Thailand Digital Repository

4 / S E T T I N G T H E S C E N EWhen the planet herself sings to us in our dreams,will we be able to wake ourselves, and act?Gary Lawless, Earth Prayers from around the WorldWE ARE IN THE MIDST OF A WATER CRISIS THAT HAS MANY FACES.Whether concerning issues of health or sanitation, environmentor cities, food, industry or energy production, the twenty-firstcentury is the century in which the overriding problem is one of waterquality and management. Water management has evolved, but in 2003some 25,000 people are still dying every day from malnutrition and 6,000people, mostly children under the age of five, are dying from water-relateddiseases. It is a real-world crisis that numbers alone can dehumanize. Themonths of writing this text have seen headlines of millions facingmalnutrition in southern Africa, millions affected by floods in Bangladesh,floods throughout central and eastern Europe, and hundreds killed by Nilefever. But the silent deaths of millions of others do not make dailyheadlines, nor does the plight of those poor and powerless people who arestill deprived of a basic human right. Yet these terrible losses, with thewaste and suffering they represent, are preventable.We know the problem: it is one of management, and we have agreedon targets for improvements to be made by 2015. But will we honour thesecommitments? Will we muster the political will to meet our goals? To do sowe must provide more than a quarter of a million individual people withimproved water supply and hygiene each and every day. We must act now.In this chapter we look at the general context in which these events andhuman dramas are unfolding. What are the forces at work? Who are themajor actors? What are the stakes? And how do the complex and oftensubtle interactions between the different actors and their environmentsaffect the water situation?