September 16, 2019
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11/14/19

Submitted to: United Nations Environment Programme

From: Rwanda

Subject: Access to water

 

Access to clean water is a human right but many citizens in countries across the world don’t have that right currently. Not only is access to water an issue for many, but also having a space to clean themselves off to stay healthy is unreachable for some. An estimated 790 million people across the world are without an improved water supply. Not only that but 1.8 billion people don’t have access to adequate sanitations or bathrooms. A basic human right isn’t available to everyone across the world but it should be.  

Rwanda is a landlocked country that struggles with finding access to clean water. Many poorer citizens live in remote places so they can’t find water easily. Only 57% of our country has access to water that is thirty minutes away from them according to UNICEF’s WASH program site. Because the water is so far away children who are collecting the water often miss school. Along with the limited access to water families often find themselves struggling to efficiently use the small amount of water they have for all of their needs.Washing their hands can prevent the whole household from getting sick. The lack of access to water can affect multiple aspects of Rwandans’ lives. 

 How can the government and organizations get to these remote places? How can organizations help build areas for communities to improve the hygiene of citizens? We need to focus on how we would get the water to developing countries. That also comes with the question of how we are going to allocate our funds. We need funding in the sense of money and general materials. In our resolution we need to find a solution to where we would get all of these things. We also need to think about how we can sustain these supplies. Do we have an organization build a facility or have monthly shipments? Should bordering countries share their water resources? How do we improve water quality in existing rivers and lakes? All important things we need to talk about. 

There are already organizations that are helping countries like Rwanda all over the world. One of those programs is UNICEF’s WASH program that is in over 100 countries across the world. This program provides water, builds bathrooms for towns, healthy hygiene through handwashing education and monitoring water quality and financing. Rwanda would like to see this program continue and other programs similar to this being built so that the coverage can be greater. The issue of water quality can also be fixed by companies providing filters for towns near rivers and or lakes. The water with low quality can often carry diseases that can spread quickly. With these filters this can also prevent diseases from spreading.

Rwanda really wants to see an improvement in the quality of water so that citizens in developing countries can have a higher quality of life. Though this is not an easy task, programs have been effective in our own country, we believe that with the coverage of these programs becoming bigger we will be able to help solve the issue of access to water.  

  • Hayden Natinsky

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