Safe drinking water and improved sanitation are basic human necessities and they are fundamental to health, growth and development. Yet, a large proportion of people in Nepal live without access to these services. Only, 77 percent of the population benefit from relatively safe drinking water from taps/pipes and tube wells (Three Year's Interim Plan, 2007). Still many people belonging to poor and excluded groups, those living in areas beyond the sources or scarce in ground water resources remain to be served.
The status of basic sanitation in the country is in a far worse condition. According to the national data only 46 percent of the population use improved latrines, while more than half i.e. 14.2 million people continue to defecate openly. Every year large number of people fall prey to various diseases due to lack of access to improved facilities of water and sanitation coupled with low level of awareness, and has been a cause for untimely deaths of many.
Achieving the MDG targets on drinking water and sanitation by 2015 and national goal of attaining universal coverage by 2017 is a challenging task for the nation. But it is possible through larger political will and commitment and increased investments. Investing on water and sanitation can prevent the annual 13,000 diarrhoeal deaths of children below five (UNICEF 2005) or loss in productive labour due to illness caused by lack of access to these services, estimated to be over 10 billion rupees per year (approximately 153 million US dollars). This is as high as 4 percent of the national GDP (Nepal State of the Sanitation Report, 2004). Ensuring policies are implemented into practice, scaling up proven and replicable approaches as well as generating greater awareness through proper collaboration and networking is as important to meet these goals in Nepal.
(source:www.newah.org.np)
