Water is a right and sanitation is a dignity. Water and sanitation affects personal life, social life and public life very hugely. In SDG 6 water, wastewater, water ecosystem, universal coverage of drinking water and healthy sanitation are being discussed. SDG 6 deals with safe drinking water, sanitation and handwash, wastewater treatment, water with good ambient quality, improving water usage efficiency in terms of per unit of fresh water withdrawal against the GDP, freshwater withdrawal as per proportion of water reserves, degree of Integrated Water Resource Management and trans boundary Integrated Water Management.

Water related ecosystem including mountains, forests, wetlands, rivers, aquifers and lakes are also an important agenda of SDG. Including other issues, increasing Official Development Assistance (ODA) and supporting local engagement in different ways are the tools for implementing SDG 6.

In 2017, globally 2.2 billion (29 per cent) people lacked safe drinking water at the same time 4.2 billion (55 per cent) people lacked healthy sanitation and 892 million (11.7 per cent) people did open defecation. In 2019, before COVID, three billion (42.8 per cent) people lacked basic handwash facilities at home. It is predicted that by 2030, 700 million people of the globe could be displaced from their present habitat due to scarcity of water.

In Bangladesh, performance both in sanitation and pure drinking water is good. In SDG, the target is set a bit higher. In 2015, 87 per cent people of Bangladesh had access to safe drinking water according to Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS). Due to change of definition of safe drinking water the performance became lower to less than 50 per cent. Our water quality is also reducing day by day, as water of ponds, rivers, canals and so on are getting polluted. It is good news that we could shift the tannery industries from the heart of Dhaka city to the outskirts of Dhaka. But wastewater treatment system of these tannery industries are yet to develop to meet the environmental standard. Moreover, wastewater treatment facilities have been developed in different industries and factories. But due to poor implementation of laws and rules along with other wastewater management systems of the city, situation did not improve much; monitoring and supervision for the industrial wastewater needs to be strengthened. For irrigation in Bangladesh, 79 per cent water comes from underground. It was estimated that one kilogram of rice needs 3000-5000 liters of water. But, by increasing efficiency by introducing buried pipe for drainage, drought tolerant variety of rice, and other good practices like introduction of Alternate Wet and Dry (AWD) method it is reduced by 15-30 per cent. Many steps has been taken to improve fresh water resources like dredging the rivers, canals and ponds, using some of the ponds for drinking water purpose, converting the irrigation system from underground to surface water by using technology in agriculture by using less water and increasing overall efficiency.