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Nature 422, 251 (20 March 2003) |

Open Innovation Challenges

The world's forgotten crisis

Peter Aldhous1

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Over a billion people cannot get clean water, and things are getting worse.

This week in Japan, some 10,000 delegates from across the globe will meet to examine what, for many of the world's poorest people, are issues of life and death. At sessions in Kyoto, Shiga and Osaka, the 3rd World Water Forum will highlight a crisis that currently forces more than one billion people to drink from sources contaminated with human waste, and leaves countless millions more with insufficient supplies to water their crops, or to spur industrial development.