Access
Running water is available in many parts of the country, but most villages remain without it. Women in remote areas typically draw water from the nearest well, sometimes walking up to two hours each way twice a day. They may carry the water in pots on their heads or load them onto donkeys.
Statistics on access to water supply and sanitation in Yemen are contradictory. For example, the data from the latest census, carried out in 1997, are very different from data in a Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) carried out in the same year. For example, according to the census, 61% or urban households had access to water connections in their home, while according to the DHS the same figure was 70%. For rural areas the order is reversed. The census gives higher figures for access to house connections (25%) than the DHS (19%). The latest data used by the United Nation are from the 2004 Family and Health Survey and the 2006 Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey. Estimates for 2008 are made based on an extrapolation of trends from previous years.
In 2008, the United Nation’s Joint Monitoring Program for Water Supply and Sanitation estimated that only 62% of the Yemeni population had access to improved water source – including 28% from house connections and 34% from other improved water sources such as standpipes. Only 52% had access to improved sanitation. Access to improved water supply, using a broad definition of access, is estimated to be somewhat higher in urban areas than in rural areas (72% vs. 57%). The urban-rural gap is, however, much higher for improved sanitation (94% vs. 33%). Due to rapid population growth, access to water supply actually declined in relative terms from 67% in 1995 to 62% in 2008 despite a substantial increase in absolute access. However, access to improved sanitation increased from 28% to 52% during the same period, according to the estimates.
Read more about this topic: Water Supply And Sanitation In Yemen
Famous quotes containing the word access:
“A girl must allow others to share the responsibility for care, thus enabling others to care for her. She must learn how to care in ways appropriate to her age, her desires, and her needs; she then acts with authenticity. She must be allowed the freedom not to care; she then has access to a wide range of feelings and is able to care more fully.”
—Jeanne Elium (20th century)
“Oh, the holiness of always being the injured party. The historically oppressed can find not only sanctity but safety in the state of victimization. When access to a better life has been denied often enough, and successfully enough, one can use the rejection as an excuse to cease all efforts. After all, one reckons, “they” don’t want me, “they” accept their own mediocrity and refuse my best, “they” don’t deserve me.”
—Maya Angelou (b. 1928)
“The last publicized center of American writing was Manhattan. Its writers became known as the New York Intellectuals. With important connections to publishing, and universities, with access to the major book reviews, they were able to pose as the vanguard of American culture when they were so obsessed with the two Joes—McCarthy and Stalin—that they were to produce only two artists, Saul Bellow and Philip Roth, who left town.”
—Ishmael Reed (b. 1938)