PESHAWAR, Aug 29: Pakistan will need to make huge investment and put in greater efforts to meet the target of increased coverage of drinking water sources and sanitation facilities by 2015 in fulfilment of its international commitments, according to a UN report launched on Thursday.

Though the country has made substantial improvement in expanding the coverage of drinking water and sanitation facilities between 1990 and 2002, Islamabad will need to do more to accomplish the target that makes part of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) evolved during a special UN summit held in 2000, the report notes.

The MDGs require the world community to reduce by half the proportion of people without access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation. The target is achievable by 2015, whereas 1990 was taken as the base year when some 23 per cent of the world's population of 5.3 billion people lacked access to safe drinking water sources and 51 per cent did not have access to improved sanitation facilities.

The report, prepared jointly by the World Health Organization (WHO) and United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef), was launched in Geneva. It analyzes the progress made so far by the UN member countries in their pursuit to achieve their respective targets of expanding the coverage of drinking water sources and sanitation facilities since 2000 when 189 UN member countries adopted the MDGs setting clear time-bound targets for making progress on this front.

This progress is essential to record reduction in diseases, especially diarrhoea which claims the lives of 1.8 million people every year with majority deaths taking place in developing countries.

The 34-page report places Pakistan among countries which have been listed as 'on track' to achieving the assigned targets. However, it would be able to achieve the assigned target only through continued focus on improving drinking water and sanitation facilities by keeping up pace with growth in its population, the report says.

Pakistan recorded considerable improvement in expanding the coverage of drinking water sources and sanitation facilities between 1990 and 2002, it notes. However, the rate of progress in the case of sanitation facilities was much less when compared with the coverage of drinking water sources.

A greater focus would be required in the case of improving the coverage of sanitation to accomplish the target that would require huge investment to ensure provision of 'improved' drinking water sources and sanitation facilities.

The coverage of drinking water sources grew from 83 per cent in 1990 when the country had a total population of 110 million people, to 90 per cent in 2002 when the population jumped to 150 million, according to the report.

In the case of sanitation facilities the rate of coverage grew from 38 per cent in 1990 to 54 per cent in 2002. "Global population growth is cancelling many of the gains already made," the report warns.

However, Pakistan is ranked 15th on the list of countries which are making rapid progress in sanitation. India, Nepal and Bangladesh are placed fourth, seventh and eighth, respectively.

On proportional basis, though, Pakistan is much ahead of these three countries. India recorded overall growth rate of 150 per cent on its way to providing 30 per cent of its population with improved sanitation facilities in 2002. Nepal recorded a growth rate of 125 per cent, Bangladesh 109 per cent and China 91 per cent.

Pakistan recorded a growth rate of 42 per cent on its way to lift the ratio of coverage of sanitation facilities from 38 per cent in 1990 to 54 per cent 2002.

The report notes that though the world has made substantial improvement in terms of improving people's access to safe drinking water, it may miss the target set for improving the coverage of sanitation facilities.

"The good news is that with 83 per cent coverage, the world is on track to meet the MDG target for drinking water," the report says, adding that "an estimated 2.6 billion people are without improved sanitation facilities and if the 1990-2002 trend holds the world will miss the sanitation target by half a billion people".

Of the world's total population of 5.3 billion in 1990, some 77 per cent had access to safe drinking water and 49 per cent to improved sanitation facilities. In 2002, according to the report, against the total population of 6.2 billion some 83 per cent had access to safe drinking water sources and 58 per cent had benefited by the improved sanitation facilities.

More than half of the world's population uses water piped to their homes which frees them from the drudgery of water collection and protects their health, the report adds.