More than 1 billion people still have no clean water to drink as the international community falls far behind in its plan to halve their number by 2015, two UN agencies say.
UNICEF and the World Health Organisation (WHO) say six years after the goal was set, 1.1 billion people still have no access to safe drinking water and 2.6 billion lack reasonable sanitation.
"The world is in danger of missing targets for providing clean water and sanitation unless there is a dramatic increase in the pace of work and investment between now and 2015," the agencies said in a joint report.
UNICEF and WHO estimate that, in order to meet the Millennium Development Goals, infrastructure must be built to provide sanitation services to a further 1.6 billion people and better access to drinking water for another 1.1 billion.
"The situation is becoming particularly acute in urban areas, where rapid population growth is putting great pressure on the provision of services and the health of poor people," the report said.
"A huge amount of work will have to be done simply to maintain the proportion of those living in cities with access to improved drinking water and adequate sanitation."
From 1990 to 2004, 1.2 billion people gained improved access to drinking water but this was almost entirely offset by population growth.
About 80 per cent of those lacking access live in sub-Saharan Africa, Eastern Asia and Southern Asia.
The agencies define clean water as water from a pipe, public tap, borehole, protected dug well, protected spring or rainwater collector.
The number of people without basic sanitation - toilets that flush into piped sewers or septic tanks, composting toilets or ventilated pit latrines - has fallen by only 98 million since 1990.
Sanitation is available to just six in 10 people worldwide.
The other four in 10 "are obliged to defecate in the open or use unsanitary facilities, with a serious risk of exposure to sanitation-related diseases," the report says.
Some 4,500 children die every day from the consequences of unsafe water and inadequate hygiene, according to WHO's 2005 figures. - Reuters
