MDG+10 Summit:
September 20-22, 2010

Ten years ago all 192 member states of the United Nations agreed to work together to improve the lives of poor people around the globe. Eight specific goals were established with the aim of cutting world poverty in half by 2015.

Achieving these Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) would result in tens of millions of lives saved, and billions more people benefiting from the global economy. 

More people die from unsafe water than from all forms of violence, including war. These deaths are an affront to our common humanity, and undermine the efforts of many countries to achieve their development potential.
– UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon

In September 2010, world leaders will come together at the UN for the MDG+10 Summit to review progress on the goals and to develop action plans to accelerate efforts over the remaining five years until the 2015 deadline.

For water and sanitation, the MDG targets are to halve the proportions of the population without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation. But current predictions are that many of the poorest countries will still not have met the water target by 2050 unless efforts are scaled up. And in Sub-Saharan Africa, the sanitation target will not be met for nearly 200 years.

We must act quickly in order to take advantage of the MDG+10 Summit where world leaders will lay out their commitments on how their countries will work to achieve the MDGs – including the targets for access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation.

Water and sanitation directly underpin all aspects of human development. Slow progress on delivery of water and sanitation undermines success on all of the other MDG targets. This is especially true for education, maternal and child health, nutrition, and poverty eradication.

WaterAid has been meeting with representatives from UN member states at the UN and around the world to encourage them to elevate water and sanitation on their agenda for the MDG+10 Summit.

You can help achieve the MDGs by making a contribution to WaterAid. Support our work today so that we can advocate for the delivery of vital water and sanitation services now – when it counts at the MDG+10 Summit.