| Synopsis: |
Clean water and adequate sanitation provision sit at the heart of development, vastly reducing global disease and bringing children, especially girls, into school, whilst women are released from the wretched daily burden of fetching water and the supply of food increases with adequate irrigation. Without concerted global action, the world risks missing not just the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) targets to halve the number of people without access to sanitation and water, but all eight Goals. This document sets out the Government's reply to the Committee's report (HCP 126-I, session 2006-07; ISBN 9780215033710), published in April 2007. The Committee's report highlighted the importance of access to sanitation as a key development objective within Department for International Development (DFID) policy objectives, with new approaches needed to tackle the entrenched stigma and poor understanding that keep demand for sanitation low and disease levels high. |