The Wash Agreement
Our Water, Sanitation and Hygene (WASH) cluster at NWP works hard for the practical implementation of the WASH agreement. In a nutshell, this agreement obliges all members of the Dutch water sector - be it government, private organisations, NGOs, or knowledge institutes - to put in an extra effort for achieving Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 7 for water, sanitation and hygiene.

Millennium Development Goal 7
MDG 7 strives for environmental sustainability for everyone on this earth. MDG 7c specifically strives to "reduce by half the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation". Over 1 billion people lack sufficient access to clean drinking water and 2.5 billion people lack access to proper sanitary facilities. This causes serious health problems, which is why MDG 7 is drawn up: By 2015, the percentage of people with insufficient access to drinking water and sanitation facilities must be half the size it is now.

Progress
In developing countries, the percentage of people with access to clean drinking water rose from 71% (1990) to 84% (2006). The percentage of people with access to proper sanitation facilities rose from 41% to 53%. This progression looks promising, but we still have a long way to go. Especially in Sub Sahara Africa and South East Asia, there is plenty of room for improving sanitation facilities.