How SDG 6 Dealing with Drinking Water and Sanitation

Sustainable development goals
SDGs are the world’s best plan to build a protected world for people and our planet by 2030. Adopted by United Nations members in 2015, to eliminate poverty and promote prosperity by protecting the environment. They consider that we should eliminate other social issues with poverty like illiteracy, and inequality, and build a developed economy. As well as they are working for climate change.
They also include other environmental issues like energy, water, technology, and all other related issues.
Journey to SDG’s
The SDGs are formed as the result of several events which are based on Earth conservation and human well fair. We will discuss these events as a journey toward the SDG’s.

• At the time of the Earth Summit in Rio, Brazil in 1992. More than 178 countries adopted Agenda 21, to make a partnership between human life protection and environmental conservation.
• Then UN Members adopted Millennium development goals at Millennium Summit in September 2000, to reduce extreme poverty by 2015
• World Summit on Sustainable Development in 2002, Nations are united to remove poverty. It was a multilateral partnership and construction of SDG’s.
• At the UN Conference on Sustainable Development in Rio, Brazil in June 2012, members adopted a document “FUTURE WE WANT”.
• In 2013 General Assembly formed a 30-member Open Group to pile up the SDG’s.
• January 2015, Assembly starts work on the post-2015 development agenda.
• Finally 2030 agenda for SDGs was adopted with 17 SDGs at the UN SDG Summit in September 2015.
• Some other agreements are also included in this construction of the SDG. Like
• Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction.
• Addis Ababa Action Agenda on Financing for Development
• Paris Agreement on Climate Change.
• The last one is HLPF (High-Level Political Forum), now it is the basic platform for UNSDGs.

17 SDG’s
There are 17 sustainable development goals which are as follows,

1. No poverty
2. Zero hunger
3. Good health and well-being
4. Quality Education
5. Gender equality
6. Clean water and sanitation
7. Affordable and clean energy
8. Decent work and economic growth
9. Industry, innovation and the infrastructure
10. Recent inequalities
11. Sustainable cities and communities
12. Responsible consumption and production
13. Climate action
14. Life below water
15. Life on land
16. Peace, justice, and strong institutions
17. Partnership for the goals

Sustainable Development Goal 6(Clean Water and Sanitation):
It is very important to include water in the SDGs because millions of people lack the basic drinking water service. Billions of people lack managed sanitation. The rapidly growing population needs water for existence, so it is a very important step to include water sanitation in UNSDGs. There are some targets and goals to conserve water for coming generations set by UN experts.
Firstly we need to discuss the 6^th goal that what it is, “This is a goal set by UN Experts to conserve fresh water and provide the whole world with clean and good quality water, and also promotion of water treatment and sanitation.” It has some purpose and targets with the indicators.
Major purpose:
The major purpose is to “Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all.”
Targets and Indicators:
These are as follows.

Targets	Indicators
Access to safe and affordable drinking water	Population proportion with clean water use
Achieve end open defecation, good sanitation, and hygiene conditions	Promotion of managed sanitation, including hand washing facility.
Achieve water cleaning by reducing every kind of pollution	Proportion of safe water treatment Bodies of water with good-quality water
Ensure wise use of water by addressing the scarcity of fresh water	Change in water use Indication of water stress
Implementation of Integrated Water Resource Management.	Degree of implementation of Integrated Water Resource Management
Protect and restore water-related ecosystems	Change in extant water-related ecosystems

These were the targets and the indicators of the Goal now we will come to the progress made in the previous years for clean water and sanitation.
Progresses
Progresses are divided into four different periods.
Progress in 2015-16
Progress in 2017
Progress in 2018
Progress in 2019
Progress in 2015-16:
There are several signs of progress made in 2015-16.these are as follows,
Improved sanitation:

• 9 billion People used improved sanitation facilities including hand washing facilities.
• Around 68% global population used the above facilities.

Clean drinking water:

• More progress made in drinking water.
• 91 %( 6.6) billion people have access to good quality drinking water, which was 82% in 2000.

Integrated water resource management:

• It is the plan of implementation of the world summit.
• 65 %( of 130) countries reported that IWRM plans were there at the national level in 2012.

Progress in 2017:

• There was a lot of reduction in open defecation particularly in rural areas.
• This was a substantial acceleration in the progress.
• A 2017 survey found that 80 %( 0f 174) countries working for the clean water and sanitation. And water treatment

ODA for Water resources:

• Is $8.6 billion per year investment
• This increased by 67% since 2015

Progress in 2018:

• 79 countries reported that 59% of water was treated safely.
• In 2017-18, 157 countries reported that implementation of Integrated Water Resource Management improved by 45% on average.
• 40 %( of 153) countries share transeboundry water resources.
• Transboundary covered just 59% in 2017.

Progress in 2019:
Drinking water:
19% of people have basic drinking water service.
Managed sanitation
It increased 45% which was 28% in 2000.
Hand washing:
60% of people have hand washing facilities with soap and 38% in low-developed countries
Integrated Water Resource Management:
Low and middle implemented in 80 %( of 175) countries
ODA:

• Increased $8.6 to $9 billion.
• Indicating importance

These are the progress made for goal 6(clean water and sanitation)

Problems
We know that struggles made a lot of progress in goal 6 means to say that water cleaning and sanitation. But there are a lot of problems related to goals and progress. We will discuss one by one, as follows,
Drinking Water Scarcity:
785 billion people on Earth lack the basic facility of clean drinking water. In 2016, 1/3 of primary schools lacked the basic facility of clean drinking water, affecting the education of millions of school children. In 2015, 29 % of the global population lacked a safely managed supply of drinking water. In 2012 estimated that 1.8 billion people were exposed to such drinking water, which contains fecal material. Also, goal six not only discusses drinking water and sanitation but also the conservation of world water bodies. It is very core to include this topic in SDG’s.
Lack of Hand Washing Facility:
In 2017, 60% of the world’s population and 38% of lower-developed countries had hand-washing facilities with hygiene, but the remaining population lacked hand-washing facilities. A major problem is found in rural areas where still open defecation is found. 3 billion people lack the hand washing facility.
Less Improved Sanitation:
From 2000 to 2017, the proportion of improved sanitation decreased from 42 % to 27 %. It was a great loss. 701 people practiced open defecation (2017). One-third of schools lack managed sanitation and hygiene. In 2015, 2.1 billion people lacked basic sanitation.
Water Stress:
“The ratio of total freshwater withdrawn by all major sectors to the total renewable freshwater resources in a particular country or a region.” Currently, water stress affects the 2 billion people in the world. It affects the countries on every continent and hinders water sustainability. Approximately one-third of countries of the world suffer from low or medium levels of water stress. This indicates the high water scarcity in the future.
There are some other problems but we have completed just a general overview of the problems related to the goal. Now we should discuss implementations or the achievements of clean water and sanitation in Pakistan.
Achievements in Pakistan
Pakistan is the integral part of UN SDG’s. It is playing a positive role in the implementation of SDG’s. Pakistan merges SDG in its national progress agenda. Pakistan was the first country which do such kind of act. A national framework was introduced in 2018 in Pakistan for the betterment of SDG’s vision. Pakistan was part of a voluntary national review of the High-Level Political Forum on sustainable development. Know we will discuss the achievements done in Pakistan relayed to goals.
Pakistan’s SDG’s agenda 2018:
Pakistan included the following steps in the agenda 2018 related to goal 6,

• Water usage and wastewater policy.
• Water conservation and building storage capacity.
• Developments of sanitation and hygiene protocols for wastewater disposal.
• Betterment of sanitation infrastructure to enhance access to quality sanitation facilities.
• National campaign for water conservation.

National water policy of Pakistan:
Pakistan set a national water policy for the conservation of water; it proved very helpful in the conservation of sustained water resources.

• It provides a set of agreed national targets for water conservation, storage, water treatment, and clean drinking water.
• It leads to a sustained national commitment to substantially increase public and private sectors for water resources.
• It creates an institutional framework.

It has become a national imperative to ensure water security for the people of Pakistan, through a national water policy lying down to optimize the economy, and social and environmental returns on water resources.
This was a good step for water conservation in Pakistan.
Other steps at the national level:

• National sanitation policy
• National drinking water policy
• Private funding is also remarkable in this work like the water plants installment in Thar Desert.
• Treatment of waste water of industries like the Fuji fertilizers company.
• Also government establishes agencies, and municipalities at the district and tehsil levels respectively.
• Also there are some suggestions exist, which are helpful in sewerage system

• 

  s improvement.

Water is crucial component of life which sustain life. Clean water and sanitation ensure the health community. If we save water we can save lives. Following figure is elaborating the importance.

Conclusion:
In a nutshell, SDGs are the plans to conserve the world for coming generations and produce sustainability of the environment. Goal 6 is about water sanitation and the conservation of water bodies. There are some targets for this goal achievement, and progress made at national and international levels. There are also some problems related to implementation. Pakistan playing its role to achieve goals.