WHO

From PiqqoWiki

The World Health Organization (WHO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) that acts as a coordinating authority on international public health. WHO is responsible for providing leadership on global health matters, shaping the health research agenda, setting norms and standards, articulating evidence-based policy options, providing technical support to countries and monitoring and assessing health trends.

Apart from coordinating international efforts to control outbreaks of infectious diseases, such as SARS, malaria, Tuberculosis, swine flu, and AIDS the WHO also sponsors programmes to prevent and treat such diseases. The WHO supports the development and distribution of safe and effective vaccines, pharmaceutical diagnostics, and drugs.

The UN's Millennium Declaration adopted by its General Assembly in September 2000 set Millennium Development Goals (MDG) that have a purpose of significantly reducing the proportion of people in the world in extreme poverty. Resolution 19 specifically states with respect to drinking water, "To halve, by the year 2015...the proportion of the world’s people who are unable to reach or to afford safe drinking water..." In 2009 the UN published The MDG Report that states: "The world is well on its way to meeting the drinking water target, though some countries still face enormous challenges." One way that the WHO has supported the safe drinking water goal is with its Household Water Treatment and Safe Storage (HWTS) program which targets people that are not connected to community water systems.