Water: Reaching the Millennium Development Goal?

Abstract: An important part of any discussion on poverty today must focus on the growing crisis related to the availability of water. This resource includes a quiz, fact sheet and discussion questions.
One of the key Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which the U.S. and 169 other nations have signed, is to reduce by 50 percent the number of people without access to water by the year 2015.

“Water is a vital element essential to survival; thus, everyone has a right to it . . . Its rational use in solidarity demands the collaboration of all people of good will with the government institutions to ensure the effective protection of the environment, understood as a gift from God.”

Pope John Paul II, message to the Brazilian Bishops on their 2004 Lenten campaign, “Water, Source of Life” “I was thirsty and you gave me water to drink.” Matthew 25:35b