Water
As of today, 900 million people lack access to an improved source of drinking water and 2.5 billion lack basic sanitation. It is estimated that unsafe water and a lack of basic sanitation and hygiene every year claim the lives of more than 1.5 million children under five years of age from diarrhea. The problem is so serious that the United Nations have included the halving of the proportion of people without acces to water and sanitation among the Millennium Development Goals. Moreover, it has been estimated that half of the world's population will be living in areas of high water stress by 2030. About 2 million children die every year because of problems arising out of the lack of water and sanitation. The problem is so serious that the United Nations has included the halving of the number of people without access to water among the Millennium Goals. What is more, it is estimated that half the world population will be living in areas with a water shortage by 2030.
The L' Aquila G8 Summit held in 2009 devoted special attention to the topic of access to water and basic sanitation. The G8 Leaders launched the Evian Action Plan at the 2003 Summit, in which they pledged to step up their policies on water and basic sanitation in the poor countries. The G8 decided at the subsequent Gleneagles Summit, held in 2005, to increase development aid allocated to that sphere. Water was a major item on the agenda for the Hokkaido Summit, held in 2008, as well, at which the Leaders decided to monitor the Evian Action Plan’s implementation status – in the light of a report to be submitted to the 2009 Summit in Italy – and to discuss an enhanced strategy for implementing the plan with their African partners.
The Italian G8 duty Presidency’s priorities include: promoting the integrated management of water resources; putting national or regional coordination mechanisms in place among beneficiary countries, donor countries and local stakeholders to encourage greater investment in the sector, and launching an international regulatory framework for measures on water.
