South Asian Coalesced Realities: SDG 3 and SDG 6 During COVID-19 Pandemic

Owing to global trade and travel, the recent novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has surpassed all geographical barriers and encompassed the entire world, impacting everyone in all spheres of life. Yet, it is evident that not every person was equally affected. In order to overcome this challenging ordeal, the World Health Organization (WHO) initially recommended washing hands with soap and maintaining hygiene as a first approach to fight against COVID-19. However, this seemingly simple instruction exposed inequalities that exist in terms of economic wealth, access to resources, urban-rural divide, and gender. The aim of this chapter is to establish how COVID-19 has made the achievement of sustainable development goal (SDG) 6, i.e., water and sanitation, of perhaps greater importance than ever before as the eradication of COVID-19 and achievement of SDG 6 are knotted. Focusing on the specific reality of the South Asian context, it is intended to analyze the social, economic, and other inequalities exacerbated by the COVID-19 and obstacles that these inequalities have brought to highlight in achieving SDG 6 and the intertwined SDG 3, i.e., health and population, in face of the current pandemic situation the world is currently experiencing.