In a press release last month, UNICEF announced that around 180,000 children under the age of 5 die annually in sub-Saharan Africa.
Breaking it down, that’s roughly 500 children a day. 500 children. Gone forever.
These deaths are caused by diarrhoeal diseases that are born of inadequate access to clean water, sanitation, or hygiene. The situation is dire and it’s only getting worse.
“Currently, nearly half of the global population without access to improved drinking water lives in sub-Saharan Africa and some 700 million people in the region lack access to improved sanitation. With a population which has nearly doubled in the last 25 years, access to sanitation only increased by 6 percentage points and to water by 20 percentage points across the region in the same period, leaving millions behind.”
So, in many ways, it’s not that the world isn’t coming up with new and effective ideas. It’s more that we are addressing the epidemic too late and now that we are, we are not moving fast enough to overcome the boom in population growth.
“UNICEF said that without speedy action, the situation can drastically worsen within the next 20 years, as rapidly rising populations outstrip the efforts of governments to provide essential services. For example, the number of people in the region who defecate in the open is higher now than it was in 1990. Meanwhile, open defecation has been linked to an increase in stunting among children.”
It’s a sobering read for sure and it’s meant to be. It points to the horrible cost of past inaction and lack of haste in attempting to address the water and sanitation gap in the world right now.
What’s worse, is that children shouldn’t have to pay for this. Yet they are – by the hundreds – every single day.