Friday, July 18, 2008

UN report on sanitation

On a day when Nelson Mandela, celebrating his 90th birthday, called for renewed attention to poverty in South Africa and the rest of the world, it's worth noting this recent U.N. report on access to clean water and basic sanitation. Although the number of people without access to clean water has been cut in half since 1990, roughly 1.2 billion people still lack basic sanitation, and this causes a significant part of the daily toll of child mortality. Even in a time of economic uncertainty and recession, most people (not everyone to be sure, but most) who live above subsistence level can do something constructive about extreme or 'absolute' poverty, even if it's just contributing something to Oxfam or a similar organization every month or every year, signing up for the One Campaign's email list, or something comparable.

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