Campaigners seek legal assurance on safe water supplies worldwide

Campaigners and charities are seeking legislation in the US Congress to bring safe drinking water and sanitation to 100 million people in the developing world by 2015.

The representatives of various charities campaigning for better water supplies made their case at a Capitol Hill briefing on 29 July.

Congress made access to safe water and sanitation a policy objective for the US Agency for International Development when it passed the Water for the Poor Act in 2005. Last year the agency helped nearly two million people gain access to safe water and 1.5 million to improved sanitation for the first time.

But figures from the World Health Organization show that 1.1 billion people, nearly a fifth of the world’s population, …