SDG 6: Clean Water and Sanitation

SDG 6: Clean Water and Sanitation

If your research contributes to meeting the UN Sustainable Development Goal 6: Clean Water and Sanitation add the keyword "SDG 6", "SDG6: Clean Water and Sanitation" and/or "Sustainable Development Goals" to your article/book/chapter/conference paper/ dataset and we will automatically add it to this rapidly growing collection of research outputs. See the instructions here. 

Billions of people throughout the world still lack access to safely managed water and sanitation services and basic handwashing facilities at home, which are critical to preventing spreading the spread of COVID-19. Immediate action to improve Water, Sanitation and Hygiene for All (WASH) is critical to preventing infection and containing its spread.

In 2017, only 71 per cent of the global population used safely managed drinking water and just 45 per cent used safely managed sanitation services, leaving 2.2 billion persons without safely managed drinking water, including 785 million without even basic drinking water, and 4.2 billion without safely managed sanitation. Of those, 673 million persons still practised open defecation.

In 2016, one in four health-care facilities throughout the world lacked basic water services, and one in five had no sanitation services.

In 2017, 3 billion persons lacked soap and water at home. In 2016, 47 per cent of schools worldwide lacked handwashing facilities with available soap and water, and 40 per cent of health-care facilities were not equipped to practise hand hygiene at points of care.

Preliminary estimates from 79 mostly high- and higher-middle income countries in 2019 suggest that, in about one quarter of the countries, less than half of all household wastewater flows were treated safely.

In 2017, Central and Southern Asia and Northern Africa registered very high water stress – defined as the ratio of fresh water withdrawn to total renewable freshwater resources – of more than 70 per cent, followed by Western Asia and Eastern Asia, with high water stress of 54 per cent and 46 per cent, respectively.

In 2018, 60 per cent of 172 countries reported very low, low and medium-low levels of implementation of integrated water resources management and were unlikely to meet the implementation target by 2030.

According to data from 67 countries, the average percentage of national transboundary basins covered by an operational arrangement was 59 per cent in the period 2017–2018. Only 17 countries reported that all of their transboundary basins were covered by such arrangements. ·

Globally, in 2018, slightly more than 2.1 per cent of land was covered by freshwater bodies, although unevenly distributed, ranging from 3.5 per cent in developed countries to only 1.4 per cent in developing countries and 1.2 per cent and 1 per cent in least developed countries and small island developing States, respectively. The adverse effects of climate change can decrease the extent of freshwater bodies, thereby worsening ecosystems and livelihoods.

ODA disbursements to the water sector increased to $9 billion, or 6 per cent, in 2018, following a decrease in such disbursements in 2017. However, ODA commitments fell by 9 per cent in 2018. Because countries have signalled a funding gap of 61 per cent between what is needed to achieve national drinking water and sanitation targets and available funding, increasing donor commitments to the water sector will remain crucial to make progress towards Goal 6.

Source: Progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals, Report of the Secretary-General, https://undocs.org/en/E/2020/57

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If your research contributes to meeting the UN Sustainable Development Goal 6: Clean Water and Sanitation add the keyword "SDG 6", "SDG6: Clean Water and Sanitation" and/or "Sustainable Development Goals" to your article/book/chapter/conference paper/ dataset and we will automatically add it to this rapidly growing collection of research outputs. See the instructions here: 

To raise awareness for this important research, the UN Sustainable Development Goals on ScienceOpen collection is promoted throughout the discovery environment in search menus, as "Related collection" banners and article recommendations. If you are working on a particular SDG you can add your work to the collection in 4 easy steps:

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