It is a sad state of affairs that in this day and age there are still millions of children across the globe who are dying for lack of access to fresh water.

According to a Unicef report, Thirsting for a Future, released on World Water Day, by 2040, on in four children across the globe will die, suffer stunted growth, or otherwise suffer from a lack of water.

Thanks to a rising global population, the demand for fresh drinking water is set to surge over the next few decades; add to that the effects of rising temperatures due to climate change, rising sea levels and increasingly more severe droughts and we are looking at a crisis of epic proportions.

The UN children’s agency said in a recent report that there are currently already 36 countries across the world that are facing “extremely high levels of water stress.”

In excess of eight hundred children under the age of five are dying every day from diarrhoea as a result of no access to clean water and poor sanitation. An unbelievable 156 million children under the age of five are currently suffering from stunted growth, which results in irreversible physical and mental damage.

Professor Anthony Lake, executive director of Unicef, wrote in the foreword to the report: “Water is elemental. Without it, nothing can grow. And without safe water, children may not survive.

“Children without access to safe water are more likely to die in infancy – and throughout childhood – from diseases caused by water-borne bacteria, to which their small bodies are more vulnerable.

“When these diseases don’t kill outright, they can contribute to the stunting of children’s bodies and minds – and the blighting of their futures – by undermining their ability to absorb nutrients.

“When a community’s water supply dries up or becomes contaminated – because of drought, because of flooding, because of conflicts that undermine infrastructure and prevent people from reaching safe water sources – such diseases abound.”

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