Each day, at least one in every ten Yemeni women has to walk one to five hours in order to bring back 20 liters of water to her home. The distance she walks is ever-increasing as, one after the other, wells dry up.
And the fight over water intensifies as resources become scarcer.
Yet a voluntarily blindfold covers the eyes of decision-makers when it comes to water and sanitation in Yemen, and this despite their international pledges to provide a better life for every man, woman and child in the country.
In particular, the UN’s seventh MDG, which our country ratified in 2000, states that half the 49 percent of Yemenis with no access to clean water are to be connected to a water and sanitation system by 2015. But, even in the most developed city in Yemen, the capital Sana'a, a city of only 2.2 million with an annual growth rate of seven percent, this goal is impossible.
Read more
