26% of world lacks clean drinking water, 46% sanitation: UN report

Overconsumption and climate change have led to severe water shortages around the world which have become “endemic”, the United Nations warned in a report.

This is creating an “imminent risk” of a global crisis, report added as two billion people lack access to safe drinking water and 3.6 billion lack access to sanitation. Global warming will further exacerbate water shortages in areas with abundant water as well as those already strained, the report also noted.

The report was released by the UN Water Forum and UNESCO hours before a rare conference in New York.

In the report’s foreword, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres wrote that the world is “blindly travelling a dangerous path” as “unsustainable water use, pollution and unchecked global warming are draining humanity’s lifeblood.”

Richard Connor, lead author of the report told AFP, “If nothing is done, it will be a business-as-usual scenario — it will keep on being between 40 per cent and 50 per cent of the population of the world that does not have access to sanitation and roughly 20-25 per cent of the world will not have access to safe water supply”, adding that as global population increases, “in absolute numbers, there’ll be more and more people that don’t have access to these services.”

The UN 2023 Water Conference, a first summit of its kind in 50 years, will host 6,500 guests from around the world, including ministers and heads of state and government.