The world is still on track for reaching the MDG drinking water target, but the trend appears to be deteriorating. On current trends, the world will miss the sanitation target by more than half a billion people. - Every year, unsafe water, coupled with a lack of basic sanitation, kills at least 1.6 million children under the age of fi ve years – more than eight times the number of people who died in the Asian tsunami of 2004. - At the beginning of the Water for Life decade, 1.1 billion people did not have access to an improved source of drinking water. - 84% of the population without access to an improved source of drinking water live in rural areas. - 2.6 billion people, more than 40% of the world population, do not use a toilet, but defecate in the open or in unsanitary places. In 2004, more than three out of every fi ve rural people, over 2 billion, did not have access to a basic sanitation facility.