 like many developing countries today). Ultimately the needs of society, businesses and industries hastened the birth of water works, making public works necessary. New York, Chicago and other cities started water acquisition and distribution with the help of private enterprise (Juuti and Katko, 2005). Nowadays the less developed countries are faced with the need to industrialise rapidly to fulfil the expectations of their people, but often without the resources (governance, technical, financial and social capital) to provide the essential infrastructure to support this (Wolf, n.d.) and with an over-reliance on imported and sometimes inappropriate expertise and technology. This has often led to hasty and inappropriate exploitation of resources - including water - and neglect with regard to closing the water cycle, by concentrating on the provision of water supplies without accompanying sanitation. Dhaka provides an example of this, where the lack of sanitation means that water supplies are polluted by sewage during monsoon periods. Impact studies from developing countries show variations in effectiveness in terms of public health from introducing water and sanitation systems, depending on conditions. Yet, the overall trend is that improved water supply results in reduced mortality and the beneficial impacts are larger when sanitation is introduced. The best results will be gained if health education is also introduced (Juuti and Katko, 2005). The value of providing water and sanitation in developing countries is highlighted in the recent report on delivering the UN WWD Water for Life (2003) challenges, in which cost/benefit ratios for provision of water and sanitation are given (Table 5.5). The conclusion is that there is likely to be a total payback of USD 84 billion a year from the USD 11.3 billion a year investment needed to meet the stated Millennium Development Goals' (MDGs') drinking water and sanitation target. Locally and regionally, competition for water is increasing. To this must be added the threats t