Why get involved with water?

1. With a world population of 7 billion, 1.1 billion people worldwide lack access to safe drinking water – about one in six worldwide
2. 2.6 billion people in the world do not have access to adequate sanitation – almost one third of the world’s population
3. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates diarrhoea kills around 2.2 million people a year, worldwide
4. 1.4 million children die every year from diarrhoea caused by unclean water and poor sanitation
5. Every day 5,000 children die from water-related diseases
6. One in four children who die before age 5 worldwide, die of a water related disease
7. A child dies every 15 seconds from a water-related diseases
8. In Africa, 91% of the estimated 881,000 deaths were from malaria and 85% were children under 5 years of age (WHO report 2008)

Water and Hygiene

1. In rural areas, 8 out of 10 people live without safe water
2. Many women and young girls in developing countries must walk as much as six miles every day to collect dirty water to drink for their families
3. 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
4. The weight of the water container that women in Africa carry on their heads can be up to 20 kg/44 lbs
5. The average person in the developing world uses less than 10 litres of water every day for their drinking, washing and cooking – average in the developed world is 200 litres per day
6. When sanitation is available the number of girls attending schools increase by 11%
7. Agriculture accounts for over 80% of the world’s water consumption
8. Based on current usage over the next 20 years humans will use 40% more water than they do now
9. The integrated approach of providing water, sanitation and hygiene reduces the number of deaths caused by diarrhoeal diseases by an average of 65%
10. The basic practice of hand-washing with soap can reduce the incidence of diarrhoea by up to 47% or 1 billion people each year

Source: WHO/UNICEF