( CNN ) -- The recent announcement by the United Nations that 89 % of the world 's population ( 6.1 billion people ) now has `` sustainable access to safe drinking water '' was described by Secretary General Ban Ki-moon as a `` great achievement for the people of the world . '' Meeting part of the target of one of the U.N. 's Millennium Development Goals ( MDGs ) ahead of the 2015 deadline was `` a testament to all those who see ( them ) not as a dream , but as a vital tool , '' he added . But the goal of universal access to clean water is far from complete says Stef Smits , program officer for IRC International Water and Sanitation Center . `` Reaching the last 10 % of the population -- those living in remote rural areas and on the fringes of big cities -- will become increasingly difficult and expensive , '' Smits said . Furthermore , he says , the MDGs on basic sanitation are unlikely to be met before 2025 . It 's an area which the U.N. concedes is `` lagging far behind '' the millennium commitments , with 2.5 billion people ( including one billion children ) still exposed to poor sanitation and one child dying every 20 seconds as a consequence , the U.N. estimates . But hope that this horrifying statistic can be eradicated is being fueled by technology which is helping monitor water supplies more quickly and efficiently . U.S.-based NGO Water for People is helping lead the charge in this area with the development of a new system called FLOW ( Field Level Operations Watch ) . Opinion : 'The Washington Well of Hope ' The mobile technology android-based system uses camera and GPS to collect information on wells and pumps . These then link to a web-based dashboard where survey data can be tracked on Google Maps and Google Earth , according to Water for People . `` Lots of organizations do monitoring and that 's great , but it tends to be a very slow process , '' said Keri Kugler , Water for People 's senior manager of programmatic data . `` This is something that ( can be done in ) real time . You can look at the data as soon as it 's collected , allowing organizations to make really quick decisions , '' she added . The Liberian government , in partnership with the World Bank 's Water and Sanitation program , has already put it to good use Kugler says , mapping 10,000 water points during 2011 . Various countries are experimenting with mobile monitoring , which could play a vital role in solving long-term sanitation issues , IRC 's Stef Smits says . The secret life of drinking water . `` It reduces the cost of data collection and hopefully reduces the downtime . I think the U.N. estimates that one in three water pumps are not working at any given moment -- that 's a shocking number , '' Smits said . Water for People recently teamed up with Akvo , a Dutch open source software company , to help develop the FLOW 's ( now officially called Akvo FLOW ) features and international reach . Twelve years ago , when it inaugurated its MDGs for Ensuring Environmental Sustainability , the U.N. stated : `` Improvements in sanitation are bypassing the poor . '' Today , little appears to have changed . `` Water sanitation is a harder goal to get to . There just are n't enough NGOs out there to put a latrine in every household , '' Kugler said . But efforts to shift the emphasis away from traditional methods of improving sanitation to simple technology-based ones might pay dividends . `` Traditionally , there have been a lot of reasons why organizations do n't want to monitor -- too expensive , too time-consuming and too difficult to do , '' Kugler said . `` The aim of FLOW is to remove some of those barriers and create something that is easy to use . ''
Despite improvements in clean water supply , U.N. says sanitation still `` lagging far behind '' and that the number of people without access to safe drinking water is expected to double by 2050.