2006 UN Human Development Report on Water Response

"Of course I wish I were in school. I want to learn to read and to write-- and I want to be there with my friends. But how can I? My mother needs me to get water, and the standpipe here is only open from 10-12. You have to get in line early because so many people come here."

                             -10-year-old girl queuing for water by a standpipe in El Alto, Bolivia (p. 47)

The choice is terrible. Give your daughter an education, or keep her home where she has a bathroom separate from the boys. Proper water availability in school isn't something that is in the front of my mind, usually I think about water at home. Reading the article gave me a wider perspective on the water crisis in cultural institutions besides the home.
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"As already noted, national figures hide large inequalities in coverage between rich and poor and between urban and rural areas. Cost factors help to explain why these inequalities exist. Aid programmes are currently marketing latrines for low-income households for $35-$90.28. On average, these spend 72% of their income on food. Were the remainder of their income to go to the purchase of a latrine, this would imply an enormous diversion of resources from health and education." (p. 127)

 The "aid programmes" in question should consider their market. Even if the materials are available, and even if the product would increase the local economy, the initial cost of the product is simply unreasonable for the area. Researching the feasibility of introducing a new product to "help" low-income households is necessary.
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Out of all the concerns we have, the lack of information available about crucial figures should be a major one. Accomplishing the Millennium development goals is a noble goal, but it'll be hard to figure out when we reach the goal if we don't know where we stand currently.

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Read page 380 in the report, Table 29, and check out Kuwait's stats. Women received the right to vote in 2005, and they still don't have any women in government at ministerial level. I don't exactly want to explore political repression in this engineering class, but it's something I'm going to examine on my own time.