Letters to the Editor: Universal access to clean water a basic right, not a long-term goal

What does it say about our world that millions of children still drink from streams, rivers, and ponds shared with livestock, that women and girls still walk for hours carrying jerry cans, and cholera still tears through communities from Malawi to Mozambique?

People fill water containers at a distribution point due to water outages in Khartoum, Sudan. Picutre: AP

This past week, leaders, experts, and campaigners gathered in Stockholm for World Water Week 2025. But while they met in conference halls, sipping bottled water in air-conditioned halls, more than 2bn people, one in four of our fellow human beings, still lacked safe drinking water.

The United Nations now admits the goal of universal access by 2030 is “increasingly out of reach”. A recent report indicates that progress has been insufficient to meet the deadline, with the situation particularly challenging in sub-Saharan Africa. That should not be a headline we skim over. It should be a scandal that keeps us awake at night. That is a polite way of saying we are failing catastrophically and people are dying because of it.