PARLIAMENTARY EARLY DAY MOTION
WORLD WATER DAY (21 March 2011)

That this House welcomes World Water Day taking place on 22 March; considers access to clean water and sanitation vital for a healthy life; acknowledges that for every 1 invested in water and sanitation there is an economic return of 8; recognises that one in three people globally still lacks access to basic sanitation and one in eight people is without access to safe drinking water; notes the severe negative impact this has on human health, education and livelihoods; further notes that diarrhoea is the biggest killer of children under five years in Africa, and that in India over 600 million people defecate in the open; recognises that there is a need for urgent and substantial progress against the water and sanitation Millennium Development Goal targets; and urges the Government to increase significantly its ambition for the sector commensurate to the scale of the global crisis, and play an essential leadership role in Sanitation and Water for All by encouraging further donor countries to sign up.

Sponsored by:
Lord Foster of Bath (Liberal Democrat)