IPD AI

Water Quality Issues in Developing Countries

03/01/2004
Network Papers

Of all the environmental concerns that developing countries face, the lack of adequate water of good quality is probably the most serious.

When the United Nations agreed at the Johannesburg
Earth Summit on the set of the 8 Millennium Development Goals, Goal 7 was ‘to ensure
environmental sustainability’. This has three targets and a number of indicators. It is
noteworthy that water is so prominent; it is the only environmental media that has a target of its
own as well as being an indicator for the ‘improving slum dwellers’ target. One can debate
whether this priority is justified on social and economic grounds and we intend to do that in this
chapter. However, there is no doubting the importance that national governments and
international financing agencies place on addressing the water problem.