Zambia - Atlas of our Changing Environment

Target: Integrate the principles of sustainable development into country policies and programmes and reverse the loss of environmental resources; reduce biodiversity loss, achieving by 2010 a significant reduction in the rate of loss; halve, by 2015, the proportion of the population without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation, and by 2020, to have achieved a significant improvement in the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers.

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without access to a clean water source was reduced from 51 per cent in 1990 to 40 per cent in 2006. However, this number grew from 26 per cent in 1991 to 36.1 per cent in 2006. More work is needed in order to reduce the proportion of households without access to clean water to 25.5 per cent. This can be done through improved access to boreholes, replacing old wells in rural settings and increasing access to treated municipal water in peri-urban areas (UNDP, 2012).

The percentage of land covered by forests in Zambia decreased from 66 per cent in 1990 to 55.9 per cent in 2007, and this has been a serious cause of concern. High priority efforts to curb deforestation and to regenerate forest cover are needed in order to protect and enable more sustainable use of the country’s rich natural resource base and to improve resilience to the impacts of climate change.

With regards to sustainable access to drinking water and sanitation, the proportion of households

Target 10: Halve, by 2015, the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation WaterAid, 2000

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Chapter 3 - Track ing Zambia’s Environmental Per formance