Chief executive’s view: Barbara Frost, WaterAid

Everyone should have access to clean water

We should be working to ensure that even the poorest people in the world have sanitation and drinking water.

This is set to be a really exciting year and one that, we hope, will have the potential to be truly life-­changing for those that exist without safe water to drink and with nowhere safe to go to the toilet.

As you may have heard, our world leaders are set to agree the new Sustainable Development Goals for 2015-30 this year – goals that seek to eradicate extreme poverty. For this to be achieved, universal access to water and sanitation is vital.

WaterAid is working hard to do all we can to influence ­decision-makers through our country programmes and globally in partnership with yourselves and others. This year we will also be launching our ambitious Global Strategy for 2015-20. We aim to do everything we can to realise our shared vision of a world where everyone everywhere has access to safe water and sanitation.

Since 2000, international development has been focused on the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) with an end date of 2015. The water target was reached in 2012 with 2.3 billion more people accessing drinking water than in 1990 – a remarkable achievement.

However, the target was to halve the numbers living without water and much more still needs to be done to reach those that are still missing out – the poorest and most marginalised people. What’s more, the target for sanitation is woefully behind, which has devastating health and economic implications.

In September, the UN will announce the new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) – the successor to the MDGs – and WaterAid has been calling for a dedicated goal to deliver clean water and sanitation to everyone, everywhere by 2030.

We need only look at our own history to see what can be done with the necessary political will. The Crossness pumping station was opened 150 years ago – an amazing feat of engineering by Sir Joseph Bazalgette – which came about after the bad smell literally got up the noses of politicians.

In the hot summer months of 1858 the smell from sewage in the River Thames got so bad that the House of Commons struggled to conduct its work. In just 18 days a bill was passed to provide money for a new sewerage system and as a result cholera was eliminated from the capital within a decade. Where there is political will, there is a way.

WaterAid has launched its big history project (click here) to get people thinking about when sanitation came to their area – we do hope readers will get involved and encourage as many people to talk about sanitation as possible. We don’t want politicians around the world to forget how important an issue this is. It is critical for the achievement of the new SDGs – and raising local awareness is a great way to do that.

Here’s to a busy year making sure as many people as possible gain access to safe water and improved sanitation.

Thank you to all the water industry and your partners for all you do to support our work.