Dirty water creates an education drain

By Vittal Katikireddi London

A lack of clean water and sanitation is a leading cause of 104 million children worldwide being unable to attend school, says a new report, The Education Drain, published by the charity WaterAid.

The report shows that many children in Africa and Asia are too sick to attend school after using dirty water and do not have time to attend school because they have to walk miles to collect water for their families. The UK government's Department for International Development (DFID) backs up this report in a new Water Action Plan, which says that a lack of clean water has detrimental effects on education.

WATERAID/BRENT STIRTON

Collecting dirty water

David Waterhouse, a policy officer for WaterAid said, "A child dies every 15 seconds from water related diseases. That is like 20 jumbo jets crashing every day. Most of these deaths are preventable. Other water and sanitation related problems like hookworm and roundworm increase the terrible burden of problems of the poor and impede access to education and the routes out of poverty. Medical students across the world are vital in creating awareness of the critical importance of public health measures."

The report shows that girls, who are often responsible for carrying water in Africa and Asia, are more frequently unable to attend school. "The benefits of addressing this inequality, however, are far reaching: for every 10% increase in female literacy you can expect a 10% increase in life expectancy at birth," the report says.

The Education Drain claims that current trends show that world governments will fail to fulfil their "millennium development promises" to halve the proportion of people without access to safe water and sanitation by 2015.

WaterAid estimate an additional $16bn (£9bn; €13bn) each year is needed to reach the targets for water and sanitation set in the millennium development promises.

Visit www.wateraid.org for the report The Education Drain. Visit www.flushoutpoverty.org for WaterAid's "Flush out poverty" petition.



studentBMJ 2004;12:133-176 April ISSN 0966-6494