Term 3 Week 2 (Blogging Assignment)

According to the World Health Organization, 1.2 billion people worldwide do not have access to clean drinking water, and a further 2.6 billion lack adequate sanitation services, and these numbers are expected to rise. The UN has estimated that 2.8 billion people in 48 countries will be living in conditions of water stress or scarcity by 2025. In my opinion, water should be treated as a human right.

Firstly, access to water, especially clean ones can ultimately reduce world-wide infections of diseases, otherwise known as water-borne diseases. Millions of people are affected each year by a range of water-borne diseases including diarrhea, which is responsible for 1.8 million potentially preventable deaths per year.

Secondly, the privatisation of waterhas not effectively served the poor, who suffer the most from lack of access to clean water. This can be seen from Bolivia, Ghana and other countries whereby the poor do not have enough water of their own as water is privatised.

Thirdly, the world is rapidly industrialising with a growing population. Clean, drinkable water is naturally scarce and with the effects of global warming, some countries would not have enough clean water to feed her people. The United States is facing the greatest water shortages of its history, and in Australia severe drought has caused dangerous water shortages in the Murray-Darling river basin, which provides the bulk of its food supply. As of now, the World Health Organization estimates that inadequate water is responsible for nearly one-tenth of the world’s disease burden, and that six percent of all deaths could be prevented by universal access to safe drinking water and better sanitation.

Water as a human right or commodity has 2 very different meanings. Water as a human right means that every human has the right to attain water, regardless of their backgrounds. Commodities are items which can be bought of the shelves of supermarkets with money. They can also sometimes be defined as goods or stock. A man cannot survive without water for 3 days. In fact, all living organisms including micro-organisms need water to survive. If water is to be considered a materialistic item which has to be bought in order to survive, god knows how many people in the world would die because they have no money at all to buy clean drinking water!

Hence, in conclusion, be it political or economic reasons, water has to be made a human right at all times. It is immoral to suggest that the poor have to be sacrificed in order for the rich to live. So what if one is poor? We all are still humans. Water belongs to Mother Earth and her children - us.