Resolution on the Right to water
"Acknowledging that access to safe water and sanitation is a human right is crucial to the ongoing struggle to save these lives"
Mikhail Gorbachev
The health status is an essential human value within world community. Therefore, it is very important to maintain the ability to be healthy and deliver it to future generations at this stage of human development.
During the long historical period, a human being was fully satisfying his needs for fresh water, without any feelings of its deficit. However, now the supplies of clean drinking water are constantly shrinking in the world. This occurs under increasing volume of water consumption, due to intense population growth and industrial activity. Currently, water demand has reached such proportions that an acute shortage of clean fresh water is observed in many places of the planet and especially in the developed industrial areas. It is known that 1,5 billion people lack clean water. According to the WHO estimates nearly 3 billion people around the world use unsafe drinking water. Each year about 25% of the world population is at risk to become sick, approximately every tenth inhabitant of the planet is sick, about 4 million children and 18 million adults die because of this reason. About 80% of all diseases in developing countries are connected with the lack of clean water. Moreover, water is an invaluable raw material, which can not be replaced.
The problem of water supply has become one of the most important in life and development of human society. It has encouraged many world organizations to turn to the issue in order to prevent further catastrophic depletion and pollution of water resources. The Op-Ed of Mikhail Gorbachev was published in the New York Times. He stands for international recognition of the right to clean water and basic sanitation as an inalienable right of every person.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/17/opinion/17iht-edgorbachev.html?_r=1&ref=global
For the first time, the U.N. General Assembly was voting on a historic resolution declaring the human right to “safe and clean drinking water and sanitation”. July 29, 2010 the resolution was adopted by consensus.
In its turn, GreenCross Ukraine fully supports this resolution. We all know that the adoption of the resolution is only the beginning of the process. We hope that the state apparatus, various non-governmental organizations, business, scientists will work together more harmoniously in order to prevent global calamities and disasters in the future.
