World facing "silent emergency" as billions struggle without clean water or basic sanitation, say WHO and UNICEF.

Entitled Meeting the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) drinking water and sanitation target A mid-term assessment of progress, the report details the progress of individual countries, regions, and the world as a whole between the MDG baseline year of 1990 and the half-way mark of 2002. It makes two significant predictions on reaching the 2015 goals, based on progress to date: • The global sanitation target will be missed by half a billion people – most of them in rural Africa and Asia – allowing waste and disease to spread, killing millions of children and leaving millions more on the brink of survival. • The world is on track to meet the drinking water target.