Hamilton, New Zealand (PRWEB) April 08, 2014
(Breaking News Feature: Health-Water Nexus):
According to the UNESCO released 'UN-WWD 2014 Report’, along with the ‘2005-20015 "Water-Life" Decade Indicators’ by SAIRI, in connection to the ‘World Health Observances 2014’, some 768 million people do not have access to an improved source of water, and 2.5 billion do not have access to appropriate sanitation. More than 57% of the world population is on high stakes of vector-borne diseases, for which in almost 72-83% cases, unsafe drinking water is one of the major attributable provenance root-sources.
The United Nations proclaimed 2005-2015 as the UN-Water Decade, with a theme-specified focus entitled ‘Water for Life’ by its Resolution No. A/RES/58/217.
A 'health-water nexus' thematic ‘situation report' titled as ‘The Unsafe Future of Safe Drinking Water’ has been released by 'SAIRI Initiative' on the UN-Water Decade 2005-2015, through the World Health Day 2014.
According to UN’s statistical estimations, some 8,69,000 children under five, die every year due to toxically germ-infested unsafe drinking water—almost over 3-4 babies a minute. Countless others fall in serious sufferings of long-term health consequences. Inadequate sanitation and ecologically incompatible sewage-drainage systems are the primary causes of the present situation.
The sewage outlets of the urban areas necessarily do impose a disproportionate and unfair burden on the lands where mostly the poor populations are inhabited. As a result, the soil along with subsoil water reservoirs, essentially become inept to shield against the burdens of both, the inorganic and organic wastes’ toxicities imposed thereupon, due to being incapable of bearing and processing this ‘disproportionate and unfair toxic burden’. In turn,… “eventually and logically, the sources of water allocations for human consumption are left on high stakes…”, elaborately establishes the SAIRI’s decade report on water.
The evidence-based SAIRI 'water report' is coincided with a specific focus and recommendations on the subject-matter, that concisely highlights the threatening and lethal short-falls alongwith the grim consequences of the present sewage system and its stark linkages with sub-soil water reserves extensive austere toxifications.
“Amid the greatest challenges to be faced by present as well as the future generations to come, is the availability of safe ‘drinkable water'. The complexities swirling around the ‘task on hands’— ‘The Unsafe Future of Safe Drinking Water’ are central to any rational consideration regarding the nexus-matters of adequate sewage, proper sanitation and the sustainability of the resources of ‘safe water’…”, points out the foreword note of SAIRI’s WWD 2005-15 Situation Report.
The UN’s children's rights organization further estimates, along with the World Health Organization (WHO), that 10 countries are home to almost two-thirds of the global population without access to improved drinking water sources: China (108 million), India (99 million), Nigeria (63 million), Ethiopia (43 million), Indonesia (39 million), Congo (37 million), Bangladesh (26 million), Tanzania (22 million), Kenya (16 million) and Pakistan (16 million).
Worldwide the figures are so high at present, and if the current trends continue to go on, more than double of the present figure would be left disadvantaged from safe drinking water, warn the subsoil hydro-toxification indicators. Noting further, that “…these devastating remnants of epic proportions, strongly stretch an inevitable call for a transition from the fragmented approach and its practice.” affirms Qadhi Al Hafi, the principal investigator of Hydro-toxification Assessment Initiative and the SAIRI indications report.
The SAIRI’s indication report goes on to pointing out that places where people do not have adequate access to water largely coincide with those where toxicity-centered diseases endemics in general, and embryonic-teratogenesis pandemic out-breaks in particular, are threateningly high.
The ‘UN-World Water Observances 2014’, were marked under two separate themes: ‘Water-Energy Nexus’ by the UNU in Tokyo, Japan and the ‘Water-Health Nexus’ in the SAARC region, by the SAIRI. The former theme was focused in perspectives of developed countries, whilst the later highlighted serious concerns with a focus on undeveloped countries, particularly the least developed countries (LDCs) of Asia and Africa regions respectively. The Tokyo celebrations started by 3/20 to mark the WWD, whereas the SAARC processions continued to be concluded by 4/7--the WHO International day, for the thematic association thereto.
The UN Secretary General, Ban Ki Moon said in his central note to the World Water Observance-2014 that, “Let us pledge to develop the policies needed to ensure that sustainable water and energy are secured for the many and not just the few.”
The UN Special Rapporteur on the human right to safe drinking water and sanitation, Catarina de Albuquerque, stressed in a distinct note, that “ill-thought out allocation of water has a disproportionate effect on the poorest sectors of society” and that “it is crucial that Governments apply a human rights framework to guide their actions.”
On behalf of SAARC sector’s academic alliance on subsoil water toxicity research initiative, the SAIRI’s Senior Director Prof. Umar Farooq, Pro-VC Dow University of Health Sciences, thematically emphasized that, “Improper and untreated disposal of sanitary water and untreated industrial waste is resulting in contamination of sub soil water threatening the nature.
For their thematic part, added the SAIRI’s Principal Investigator, the DUHS Pro-VC, and the UNESCO-SAARC at PU, in a cautioning note that “Human beings consuming the sub-soil water and the crops in which the water is used, become a source of spread of avertable severe diseases. We have to raise the awareness globally for the prevention of contamination of natural reservoirs of water”.
The Rector of United Nations University (UNU), David Malone, this year's coordinator of World Water Day on behalf of UN-Water together with UNIDO, said that "Significant policy gaps exist in this nexus at present, and the UN plays an instrumental role in providing evidence and policy-relevant guidance… We seek to inform decision-makers, stakeholders and practitioners about the interlinkages, potential synergies and trade-offs, and highlight the need for appropriate responses and regulatory frameworks that account for both water and energy priorities. From UNU's perspective, it is essential that we stimulate more debate and interactive dialogue around possible solutions to our energy and water challenges."
The subsoil hydro-toxification theme initiator Prof. Qadhi Aurangzeb Al Hafi said in SAIRI’s indications report that, “Academically, on the face of the subject under focus, we must acknowledge that it is impossible to address these complexities, if we treat them in isolation. We need to recognize the multifarious interactions between them that are closely interlinked”.
“The many strong links between sewage, sanitation and sustainability of ‘safe water’, do call for a coherent approach coupled by integrated policies and innovative stratagems, but all that, collectively, within an eco-compatibility focus framework”. , notes further the multi-disciplinary arch-researcher Prof. Hafi, who is credited for foremostly identifying the teratogenic effect of underground water’s contaminations responsible for complex embryonic hydro-toxicity resulting in multiple disabilities at pre-birth stages as well as in the newly born.
UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova emphasized that “There is enough water in the world for everyone. What we continue to lack is better governance and the collective courage to craft fair compromise solutions”. She said, adding “It is about improving maternal health, curbing child mortality, and preserving the environment.”
Water is the fundamental essential for all of the living beings on earth, including the human beings. Indispensably and vitally, it comes to be the principal denominator of all challenges concerning the survival, subsistence, sustainability and development of the diverse realms in connection of humankind—thus encompassing the all-around core and conjoint dominions of United Nations’ MDGs.
The WWD Observance-2014, that marks the second last year of the theme-specific decade as well, however took it steps further by embracing a thematic debate highlighting the concerns related to severe contamination of underground water reserves, along with its pandemic out-breaks and life-threatening vector-borne health consequences, which are perpetuated by the wide-extent practice of prevailing sewage drainage system, that is not at all ‘ecologically compatible’, neither ‘human rights ethicality or morality-oriented’, nor ‘environmentally sustainable’ by no means, at any measure.
It has been portentously learnt as a high alarming concern, that by polluting the underground water reservoirs, we have affected not only the soil or the water—but whole of the environment in its totality, to that a threatfull extent that the present-day generation is progressively leaving the earth a tougher place for the next generations to survive, that could be an easier place to live otherwise as that,—that we inherited from centuries and millenniums of our ancestor generations.
References:
http://www.un.org/waterforlifedecade/background.shtml
http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=47409#.U0J6Os5SgXg
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2014/small-bite-big-threat/en/
http://www.unwater.org/worldwaterday/world-water-development-report/en/
