MDG 7: Ensure Environmental Sustainability

girls worldwide say "we can save our planet"

Ensure Environmental Sustainability is the seventh Millennium Development Goal (MDG). The aims are:

• Add the values of sustainable development into country policies and programmes; reverse loss of environmental resources by 2015.
• Reduce by half the number of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water by 2015.
• Achieve major improvement in lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers, by 2020.

Are targets being met?

• So far United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has called the efforts to address the food crisis, climate change and the slow progress towards realising the MDGs “too divided, too sporadic and too little”.
• At a global level, the world is on track to meet the 2015 target of reducing by half the number of people without access to clean water. However, rural areas are falling behind and sub-Saharan Africa overall is off- track. Sanitation is even worse, the world is not set to meet this target. Countries must also step up efforts to integrate values of sustainable development in their national development strategies. Climate change is also emerging as a threat to the achievement of the MDGs.
• A lack of clean water and basic sanitation is the reason that diseases are so common in developing countries. In 1990, diarrhoea led to 3 million deaths, 85 percent of them among children.  As a result, by achieving MDG7 it will also directly affect our ability to achieve MDG 4 (reduce child mortality), 5 (improve maternal health) and 6 (combat diseases).

Did you know?

• As of 2002, one in six people worldwide – 1.1 billion total – had no access to clean water and 6 in 10 people do not have access to basic toilet facilities.
• Some two million children die every year – 6,000 a day – from preventable infections spread by dirty water or improper sanitation facilities.
• WAGGGS is part of the ‘Our World, Our Climate, Our Food’ campaign run together with the UN Food and Agricultural Organization and other UN agencies and NGOs. Find out more on the WAGGGS website.