SYSTEMS STRENGTHENING AND POLICY SUPPORT TO INCREASE ACCESS TO SAFE DRINKING WATER

United Nations General Assembly acknowledged that safe drinking water and sanitation are essential to the realization of all human rights and declared Water as a human right. There has been great progress made in the past decade regarding safe drinking sources, whereby over 90% of the world’s population now has access to improved sources of drinking water. Although, in today’s world 785 million people does not a basic drinking water services and 3 out of 10 people lack access to safely managed drinking water services. Moreover, it is anticipated that by 2050, at least one in four people is likely to live in a country affected by chronic or recurring shortages of fresh water. One of the key challenges in drinking water sector is good governance, which also deeply entwined with economy and societal reaction. Arsenic in drinking water and food is a major health issue, affecting millions of people in many parts of the world. Providing safe water for the mass population is one of the major target for SDG 6, millions of people globally lack safely managed drinking water services, especially in areas with poor sanitary conditions or areas affected by natural contaminants such as arsenic and fluoride. Fortunately, in recent years with support of the government and non-government organizations are addressing the underlying bottlenecks and encouraging government leadership into necessary institutional harmonization to capacitating private sector. KTH is helping governments and technical institutes around the world designing private sector involvement within the drinking water safety policies, at the same time demonstrating the opportunity using ICT tools for improved and transparent decision making on local level, in order to scale up safe water access. These efforts are encouraging discussion, deliberations, sharing the best practices and innovations in drinking water, health and management of freshwater ecosystems sector.