The Need

Photo courtesy of Stuart Franklin/Magnum Photos

Roughly 1 in 6 people, over 1 billion in the world, do not have access to clean drinking water. (1)

Over 300 million people in Africa did not have access to safe water — that’s the same as the population of the United States. (2)

Over 2 million children die each year from preventable disease due to unclean water and inadequate sanitation. That’s 5,000 children every day — more than HIV/AIDS, malaria, and measles combined. (3)

In sub-Saharan Africa, a baby’s chance of dying from diarrhea is almost 520 times the chance of that in Europe or the United States. (4)

40 Billion working hours are spent carrying water in Africa each year. (5)

Households in rural Africa spend an average of 26% of their time fetching water, and it is generally women who are burdened with the task. (6)

In Africa, the average family needs 200 liters of clean water a day to survive. 200 liters that  must be carried from distant wells every day. (7)

Women in Africa may carry as much as 20kg or 44lbs of water on their head. (8)

Rural women walk at least 10 miles a day to get water, often much more in dry seasons. (9)

The UN and the World Health Organization agree that Sub-Saharan Africa faces the greatest challenge in increasing the use of improved drinking-water. (10)

Investment in clean water per year yields:

• Health care savings of US$ 7 billion for health agencies and US$ 340 million for individuals.
• 320 million productive days gained, an extra 272 million school attendance days, and an added 1.5 billion healthy days for children under 5, together representing productivity gains of US$ 9.9 billion.
• Time savings resulting from more convenient drinking water and sanitation services totaling 20 billion working days, giving a productivity payback of some US$ 63 billion.
• Value of deaths averted, based on discounted future earnings, amounting to US$ 3.6 billion. (11)

Most developing countries around the world are on track to meet Millennium Development Goal 7 to halve the world’s population who does not have access to clean drinking water — except for Sub-Saharan Africa. (12)

By 2020, between 75 million and 250 million Africans are expected to experience increased water stress due to changes in the continent’s environment. (13)

The number of people living in rural areas who do not use an improved source of drinking water is over five times the number living in urban areas. 84% of the world population without an improved drinking-water source lives in rural areas and 37% of people not using an improved source of drinking water live in Sub–Saharan Africa. (14)

Kofi Annan, Former United Nations Secretary General:

We shall not finally defeat AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, or any of the other infectious diseases that plague the developing world until we have also won the battle for safe drinking water, sanitation and basic health care. (15)

United Nations:

Improved drinking water coverage in sub-Saharan Africa is still considerably lower than in other regions… [the region is] lagging behind badly. (16)

United Nations:

Despite the fact that 22 African countries have increased access to improved drinking water source in rural areas by 25 per cent or more, the changes are still too low for Africa to reach the [United Nations'] target of halving the number of people without access to an improved drinking water source by 2015. (17)

Ban Ki-Moon, United Nations Secretary General

…water is not only a basic necessity, it is a human right. Without water, there is no life. Yet hundreds of millions of people do not have access to safe, clean water. Approximately 2.6 billion people lack safe sanitation facilities. Living in these conditions increases the likelihood of disease and death. It perpetuates poverty. …The challenge is particularly great in rural areas. We must urgently work toward a world in which every person has access to clean, safe water every day…

Gender considerations must remain central. As primary care-givers, women spend many hours simply trying to secure water. Access to clean water and sanitation will free up time and enable mothers to provide their children with a healthy start in life. Experience also shows that girls are more likely to attend school when there are proper sanitation facilities. (18)

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(1) WHO/UNICEF, Water for Life, 2005

(2) UN Habitat Programme

(3) WHO/UNICEF, Water for Life, 2005

(4) WHO/UNICEF, Water for Life, 2005

(5) Cosgrove and Rijsberman 1998

(6) UK DFID

(7) WHO, 2003

(8) WHO/UNICEF, Water for Life, 2005

(9) International Museum of Women

(10) WHO/UNICEF, Water for Life, 2005

(11) Evaluation of the costs and benefits of water and sanitation improvements at the global level, WHO, 2004

(12) WHO, May 2010

(13) Vital Water Statistics, UNEP, 2008

(14) WHO/UNICEF, Water for Life, 2005

(15) UN website

(16) UNDG Task Force on the Millennium Development Goals, “Thematic Paper on MDG 7,” 2010

(17) UNDG Task Force on the Millennium Development Goals, “Thematic Paper on MDG 7,” 2010

(18) Remarks by the Secretary-General on “Addressing the Global Water and Sanitation Challenge: The Key to the MDGs,” 2010