Objective: To determine how data on water source quality affect assessments of progress towards the 2015 Millennium Development Goal (MDG) target on access to safe drinking-water.
Methods: Data from five countries on whether drinking-water sources complied with World Health Organization water quality guidelines on contamination with thermotolerant coliform bacteria, arsenic, fluoride and nitrates in 2004 and 2005 were obtained from the Rapid Assessment of Drinking-Water Quality project.

New York, Mar 6, 2012: The international target to halve the number of people who do not have access to safe drinking water has been met, five years before the 2015 deadline, the UN announced on Tuesday.

Washington DC, USA, Mar 4, 2012: Neither Jamaica nor the rest of the countries in the Caribbean and Latin America will meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) for maternal mortality, Andrew Morrison, Chief of the Gender and Diversity Division, Social Sector Department of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), has said.

WaterAid Nigeria, an international NGO, says Nigeria is ''off track'' to meet MDG target on water and sanitation.

WaterAid in association with Kathmandu Metropolitan City, Lalitpur Sub Metropolitan City, End Water Poverty and the National Federation of Disabled Nepal will today (Friday the 18th of November) launch the 'Off-track, off target' Report and host the Nepal Crisis Talks on the sanitation crisis.

* Water Aid report says under MDGs, Pakistan is committed to supply 93 percent of population with safe water and 64 percent with adequate sanitation by 2015

According to the United Nations, about 2.6 billion people on Earth go without access to sanitary toilet and sewage facilities. In many cases, people still practice "open defecation," or going in the bush near villages. This practice can be deadly, as bacteria from excrement often get tracked back into the community, contaminating water supplies and spreading disease.

At the end of this month, the world's population will cross the 7 billion mark and continue to climb. Over the last five weeks, Global Pulse interviewed several world leaders about how to slow this explosive growth.

Pakistan is unlikely to meet MDGs regarding sanitation facilities as about 50 percent people here would be deprived of access to adequate sanitation facilities and safe drinking water by the year 2015. If this trend continues, the total number of people affected by poor sanitation facilities could increase to 52.8 million.

A Christian group is calling on the Australian government to provide WASH access for 8.8 million people each year by increasing aid to water and sanitation from the current A$ 117 million (US$ 114 million) to A$ 500 million (US$ 487 million) per annum by 2015. Based on the estimated A$ 70 billion a year that is needed to meet the MDG targets for water and sanitation by 2015, the group believes that Australia’s fair share in this effort amounts to A$ 500 million per year.