The 17 Sustainable Development Goals have distinct functions but are interrelated and requires an integrated approach from both scientists and policymakers.
Drug resistance to cholera causing bacteria affects treatment especially in developing countries.
Shutterstock
Cholera is caused by a lack of access to clean drinking water and unhygienic conditions. Misuse of antibiotics makes it difficult and expensive to treat outbreaks.
According to a new UN report, more than two billion people around the world do not have access to clean, safe water in their homes. Most of the work of getting water falls to women and girls.
Tackling the challenge of stunting in South Africa needs a convergence of science and policy along with better coordination at all levels of government.
South African children in Kwa-Zulu Natal walk to the last tap with running water after other communal taps were cut off due to drought.
Reuters/Rogan Ward
South Africa did a brilliant job of increasing access to safe water for millions of people after the first democratic elections in 1994. But it hasn’t kept up the good work.
Massive state capture activity is taking place in the South African water sector under the guise of radical economic transformation, threatening financial sustainability and water supply.
People use the Wawa River in the Philippines for many purposes.
Phoebelyn Gulunan, 2016
Progress in terms of water and sanitation has traditionally favoured those with money. But the hope with the SDG’s is that this gap will be plugged in the future.
As Australia joins a New York summit to discuss the UN Sustainable Development Goals, it still faces questions over whether it is meeting water standards at home.
In Africa, more than 315,000 children die every year from diarrhoeal diseases caused by unsafe water and poor sanitation.
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There have been modest improvements in water and sanitation provision in Africa, but there is still a long way to go. Most citizens rate their governments’ performance in this sphere poorly.
Patients and companions at the Cholera Treatment Center in Haiti, April 2015.
Andres Martinez Casares
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi wants to bring 1.5 million toilets to the 600 million Indians without access by 2019. If he fails that could prove dangerous in an election year.
Many women in developing countries spend hours every day fetching water for their families. Reducing the burden of water work will improve their health and welfare.
A child collects clean water in Delmas, east of Johannesburg, an area vulnerable to outbreaks of the deadly typhoid virus.
Reuters/Mujahid Safodien
While everyone needs access to proper sanitation to stay healthy, for girls and women it is also an issue of safety and equal participation in society.
Children in Ethiopia wash their hands outside a school latrine.
Unicef Ethiopia
More than two billion people lack access to decent sanitation. Innovative sanitation technologies can bring toilets into the 21st century with benefits for the developing and developed world.