Getting to boiling point : turning up the heat on water and sanitation

The world’s poorest people are still waiting for the water itself, let alone for it to boil. The performance of the water sector remains brutally inadequate: more than a billion people are still without safe water and 2.6 billion lack any way to dispose of their excrement in safety and with dignity.
This research document reveals how governments will fail to meet their water and sanitation promises to the world’s poor unless they improve their performance. It exposes the financial waste and under-investment that are currently trapping millions in poverty. It sets a baseline against which progress on these issues can be measured, and tries to give national governments and the international community the options that, if followed, could enable them to keep their promises to halve the proportion of people without safe water and sanitation by 2015, as set out in the Millennium Development Goals. The challenges outlined in this report present the development community as a whole and the water and sanitation sector in particular with an agenda for action.
To assist in moving from the “what” of policy to the “how” of action, WaterAid has sought the views of practitioners in the 14 countries. Their perspectives on the day-to-day blockages actually preventing them from delivering new water and sanitation services confirm that much better use could and should be made of the money in the sector.