Fact Sheet
(Based on a Country Report commissioned by UN-Water/Africa)

CAMEROON

• About 75 per cent of the population lacks access to adequate sanitation.
  
  
• Although Cameroon has abundant freshwater resources (about 18,536m3 per capita per year), about 45 per cent of its population -7 million people - have no access top adequate drinking water.
  
  
• In the rural areas, six of ten persons do not have access to potable water.
  
  
• There are about 300 urban centers with a population of more than 5000, but only 98 of these have water supply networks.
  
  
• About one out of four Cameroonian lacks assess to inadequate sanitation.
  
  
• None of the major cities in Cameroon has a central sewage treatment plant. The few plants that were constructed for some housing estates have been abandoned. Therefore, untreated sewage flows into the environment.
  
  
• Polluted and untreated wastewater from hospitals flows into nearby streams where the population uses the water for domestic and agricultural purposes.
  
  
• Water-related diseases account for about two-thirds of all recorded diseases and are responsible for about 50 per cent of the reported cases of death.
  
  
• In 2000, 15 per cent of children in Cameroon died before the age of five mainly due to water-related diseases.