Every year, 22^nd of March marks the humanity celebrating the World Water Day. This year’s theme is: Leaving no one behind.

What does it mean from the Islamic Development Bank perspective?

First of all, we have to remember that from a basic need, access to water (and sanitation) has been elevated to a human right by the UN General Assembly in June 2010.

While access to basic water services has improved in IsDB member countries, still 467 million people are denied this access. However, when we refer to SDG6, which is wider in scope and more ambitious in terms of access and quality to water services, then the picture is bleaker, with 1.15 billion dwellers with no access to the service. Those left behind are economically under-privileged, living in urban slums, rural areas, or refugee camps.

On the occasion of the World Water Day, Dr Bandar Hajjar, President of the IsDB declared: “We will continue our efforts to make sure that no one is left behind in our member countries in terms of access to water and sanitation. This means, for us, not only providing financing to our members countries, as we have been doing since 1975, but also leveraging additional resources, and harnessing innovations in order to fulfill our member countries’ aspirations to provide access to safe water supply and sanitation services, in line with the SDG6”.