The Crisis - Water and Sanitation

It's hard to imagine: 884 million people worldwide don’t have regular access to safe drinking water.

Equally alarming is the fact that 2.6 billion (World Bank 2010) people lack adequate sanitation facilities.  Recent estimates are also that over a billion people practice open defecation—no latrine at all.

The result of these shortfalls is devastating. Every day, more than 6,000 people in our world die from water-related illnesses—nearly 2 million each year—and most of them are young children.

Uncollected garbage, overflowing latrines and non-functional residential and municipal drainage pipes plague poor people in urban areas. Children play in "latrine streams" filled with disease.

Lack of access to safe water and toilets severely impacts girls and women. They frequently travel many miles from their homes to collect water for their families, damage their spines by carrying such heavy loads on their heads, and lose their dignity and safety without access to proper sanitation – all of which prevents them from going to school, contributing to the family income or creating a fulfilling future.

The water and sanitation crises are hitting the most vulnerable populations—the world’s poor. About half of the world’s population lives in abject poverty on less than $2 per day. Water-related preventable diseases are killing these people and arresting development in their communities. 

If you visit the developing world and look closely, you’ll see a disturbing image: women, girls, men and boys walking past broken water and sanitation solutions. In some cases, a new pump may be just around the corner or down the road. Yet, symbols of failed programs—failed hopes—confront villagers every day. And those symbols represent huge amounts of wasted money, time and effort. Two steps forward and one step back is no way to solve this crisis.

Learn what Water For People is doing to solve this unimaginable crisis and how you can be a part of the solution.

Water and Sanitation

• 2.5 billion people lack adequate sanitation & 884 million people are without access to safe water. (UNICEF and WHO, 2008)
• More than 125 million children under five years of age live in households without access to an improved drinking-water source, and more than 280 million children under five live in households without access to improved sanitation facilities. (UNICEF, 2006)
• 90% of wastewater in developing countries is discharged into rivers and streams without any treatment. (UNDP, UNEP, World Bank, and the World Resources Institute, “World Resources 2000-2001”, pg. 25-26)
• Diarrhea can be reduced by 26% when basic water, hygiene, and sanitation are supplied. (World Water Day, 2001)

Water and Disease

• 4,000 children die each day as a result of water-related illnesses. (WHO 2004)
• In the past ten years, diarrhea has killed more children than all the people lost to armed conflict since WWII. (WSSCC, 2004)
• Water is implicated in 80% of all sickness and disease worldwide. 19% of deaths from infection and disease worldwide are water related and waterborne diseases contribute to nearly 4 million child deaths. (Rehydration Project)
• At any one time, it is estimated that half the world’s hospital beds are occupied with patients suffering from water-related diseases. (WSSC, 2004)
• Diarrhea kills more than three million people each year and chronic diarrhea is a leading killer of people with AIDS. (USAID, 2004)
• Major diseases transmitted by water: cholera, typhoid, bacillary dysentery, infectious hepatitis, and Giardia. (WHO, “Right to Water,” 2003)
• Major diseases caused by lack of water: scabies, skin sepsis and ulcers, yaws, leprosy, trachoma, dysenteries. (WHO, “World Health Report” 2002)

Women and Water

• The average distance that women in developing countries walk to collect water per day is 6 kilometers (4 miles) and the average weight that women carry on their heads is approximately 20 kilograms (44 pounds), the same weight as airport luggage allowance. (WSSCC, 2004)
• Almost 70% of the world’s citizens living in poverty are women. (World Water Day, 2001)

Water and Economic Growth

• Over 40 billion work hours are lost each year in Africa to the need to fetch drinking water. (WHO 2004)
• Water-related illnesses cost the Indian economy 73 million working days per year. (WSSCC, 2004)