PROFOH Endorsed United Nations &TI Study On Water

“Corruption is the elephant in the room” for improved water supplies, said Zafar Adeel, director of the U.N. University‟s Institute for Water, Environment and Health, which was a co-producer of the report .The study said investments of $840 billion to $1.8 trillion a year, or up to about 2.2 percent of world gross domestic product, would be needed over 20 years to provide universal access to safe drinking water and sanitation and to improve other services such as irrigation and hydro power .That would mark a sharp rise from the current $500 billion invested each year but yield benefits of at least $3.0 trillion a year, or more than $1.0 trillion above the highest projected spending, it said. Benefits would include “direct economic return, livelihood creation, health system savings, and the preservation of nature‟s ecosystem services”, according to the study, which said it was the first long-term estimate for water costs. The benefit and cost  estimates were intended to help debate about water, a sector that faces strains from a rising world population, pollution and climate change .Drinking water Almost 2.5 billion of the world‟s 7 billion people lack access to sanitation, and about 770 million lack safe drinking water, U.N. data show. The report cited a 2008 study by Transparency International that said about 30 percent of spending on water-related infrastructure in developing nations today is lost to corruption .Much of the impact of this corruption falls on the poor and those without access to water,” according to Wednesday‟s report, produced with the U.N. Office for Sustainable Development and the Stockholm Environment Institute .Adeel said that companies and aid agencies could try to invest directly in local projects in developing nations, bypassing central governments, to limit the risk of corruption.