Around 26 million people of Bangladesh do not have access to safe drinking water sources, UNICEF and WHO estimates.
Almost four years after the world met the global target set in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) for safe drinking water, and after the UN General Assembly (UNGA) declared that water was a human right, over three-quarters of a billion people, most of them poor, still do not have this basic necessity, UNICEF said in a press release issued on Friday to mark World Water Day.
Bangladesh is one of the ten countries, where almost two-thirds of the global population have no access to improved drinking water sources.
The nine other countries are China (108 million), India (99 million), Nigeria (63 million), Ethiopia (43 million), Indonesia (39 million), Democratic Republic of the Congo (37 million), United Republic of Tanzania (22 million), Kenya (16 million) and Pakistan (16 million).
A UNICEF and WHO study published in 2013 unveiled that around 768 million poor people do not have access to safe drinking water, causing hundreds of thousands of children to sicken and die each year.
According to UNICEF estimation, some 1,400 children under five die every day from diarrhoeal diseases linked to lack of safe water, adequate sanitation and hygiene.
Women and girls are disproportionately affected by lack of access to safe water as 71% of the burden of drinking water collection is being shouldered by women and girls, UNICEF study said.
Sanjay Wijesekera, head of UNICEF's global water, sanitation and hygiene programmes said: “Every child, rich or poor, has the right to survive, the right to health, the right to a future.”
“We must target the marginalized and often forgotten groups: those who are the most difficult to reach, the poorest and the most disadvantaged,” he added.
The MDG’s target for drinking water was met and passed in 2010, when 89% of the global population had access to improved sources of drinking water — such as piped supplies, boreholes fitted with pumps, and protected wells.
In 2010, the UN General Assembly recognized safe drinking water and sanitation as a human right, meaning every person should have access to safe water and basic sanitation. However, this basic right continues to be denied to the poorest people across the world.