The United Nations has deemed 2003 the International Year of Fresh Water. Last March the World Water Forum was held in Japan to remind the World of an increasingly developing crisis. Half of the world’s population is living in unsafe sanitary conditions without access to clean water. A report, drawn up by the World Commission on Water for the 21st Century, estimates that three billion of the world’s most deprived people live without access to proper sanitation. One billion of them have no access to safe water at all.