Source: Irish Weather Online

Only 48 percent of Afghanistan’s population have access to safe drinking water and only 37 percent use improved sanitation facilities – with serious health implications, especially for children, according to the UN Children’s Fund.

While some parts of the country are physically water scarce, most people lack access to safe water because of inadequate infrastructure and poor management rather than insufficient resources, says a report published by the Centre for Policy and Human Development at Kabul University.

“During three decades of turmoil in Afghanistan, water supply infrastructure has been neglected or destroyed, while the relevant institutions responsible for management and service delivery have collapsed,” said the report entitled Afghanistan Human Development Report 2011.

Afghan refugee children wait to get water from a public water pump in a refugee camp in Kabul, Afghanistan, June 20, 2011. Continued Taliban-led insurgency, insecurity incidents, high rate of unemployment and poverty have been main obstacle to delay the return of over six million Afghan refugees from neighboring states.