Our work

1. What is WaterAid?

2. What does WaterAid do?

3. Why water, sanitation and hygiene education?

4. Does WaterAid carry out emergency work?

5. Where does WaterAid work?

6. Why do you work where you work?

7. There are other countries which need water and sanitation too. Why doesn't WaterAid work there?

8. Does WaterAid work with other organisations?

9. Do you carry out work with governments?

10. What has WaterAid done over the last year that has made a genuine difference?

1. What is WaterAid?

WaterAid is a leading independent organisation that enables the world's poorest people to gain access to safe water, sanitation and hygiene education. We work in Africa, Asia and the Pacific region and campaign globally with our partners to realise our vision of a world where everyone has access to these basic human rights.

2. What does WaterAid do?

WaterAid enables the world's poorest people to gain access to safe water, sanitation and hygiene education. These basic human rights underpin health, education and livelihoods and form the first, essential step in overcoming poverty.

We work with local partners, who understand local issues, and provide them with the skills and support to help communities set up and manage practical and sustainable projects that meet their real needs.

We also campaign locally and internationally to change policy and practice and ensure water and sanitation's vital role in reducing poverty is recognised.

Find out more about what we do.

3. Why water, sanitation and hygiene education?

Water and sanitation are human rights, vital to reducing poverty around the world. Together with good hygiene these essential services are the building blocks for all other development - improving health, education and livelihoods.

WaterAid and its partners are committed to working towards the Millennium Development Goals to halve the proportions of people living in poverty around the world by 2015. If the specific targets relating to water and sanitation are missed progress on the other goals will stall. Improvements in water and sanitation reduce illness and deaths and free up time spent collecting water or incapacitated through sickness for education and other economic and social development.

4. Does WaterAid carry out emergency work?

WaterAid is principally a development organisation, working with communities on long-term solutions to water and sanitation problems. However, in the places where we work, we endeavour to respond to natural disasters and other emergencies where we can make a useful contribution, especially in protecting or restoring vital water and sanitation services for poor people.

5. Where does WaterAid work?

WaterAid works in 17 of the world's poorest countries in Africa, Asia and the Pacific region. These countries are Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Ghana, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Nigeria, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia in Africa; Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Pakistan in Asia; and Papua New Guinea and Timor-Leste in the Pacific region.

6. Why do you work where you do?

These countries were specifically selected following a set of criteria including:

• The country lies at the bottom end of the UNDP (United Nations Development Programme) Human Development Index.
• There is a significant population in the country that lacks access to water and sanitation services.
• The government's attitude to international NGOs is a positive one.
• There are local organisations in existence with whom WaterAid could partner.
• There is a sense that WaterAid could add value to the water and sanitation sector in the country (ie there are problems to which no one in the country currently seems to have answers, or that WaterAid has relevant experience which could help improve performance).
• The security situation is stable and the possibility exists for long-term development work and the establishment of community management structures.

7. There are other countries which need water and sanitation too. Why doesn't WaterAid work there?

As the scale of the global water and sanitation problem is so vast and we only have limited resources we are unable to reach everyone who needs support. Instead, WaterAid has chosen to focus its work in 17 countries (listed in the answer to question five) in the coming years so that it can make a significant and lasting contribution to those living without safe water and sanitation in each country.
We use practical examples from our project work to demonstrate good practice through our global advocacy work where we aim to change policies and practices around the world that impact upon people's access to these basic needs.

8. Does WaterAid work with other organisations?

We are continuously seeking ways of working in partnership with others so that our work has as much impact as possible. This is why we work with local organisations, through the structure put in place by country governments.

As local governments in many of the countries in which we work have been given the responsibility, but not the skills or resources, to develop water and sanitation in their regions, WaterAid has plans to work more closely with them in the coming years to develop their capacity to carry out their work effectively.

We also work with other international NGOs, research institutes and alliances on our campaigns, reports and advocacy work - both in the countries where we work and internationally. For example we currently work with WWF, Oxfam, BOND, Action Aid, WDM (World Development Movement), WEDC, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, ODI (Overseas Development Institute) and the Water and Sanitation Collaborative Council, among others.

We are also a founding member of the End Water Poverty campaign, a coalition of like-minded organisations calling for water and sanitation for all. Find out more. 

9. Do you carry out work with governments?

WaterAid believes that all governments have a responsibility to provide water and sanitation services for their citizens. However, in many of the countries where we work there is often a lack of capacity and funds to make this happen. WaterAid therefore works with governments, and campaigns nationally and internationally, to help ensure that the world's poorest people gain access to these basic needs.
 
In Bangladesh, the UK Government's Department for International Development (DFID) provides a core-grant to extend WaterAid's programme there. In Nigeria, WaterAid is working in Oju and Obi local government authority areas in support of DFID's Benue State programme. We also work closely with many local government departments, which have been given the responsibility, but often not the resources or training, to carry out water and sanitation work in their area.
 
WaterAid also represents non governmental organisations on the Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council, one of the main international groupings of government and professional people working in the global drinking water sector.

10. What has your charity done over the last year that has made a genuine difference?

In the year 2006/7 WaterAid and its partners helped nearly one million people gain access to safe water and over one and a half million people gain access to sanitation. Our partners' hygiene promotion work has disseminated information to over 1.5 million people, greatly reducing the spread of deadly diseases.

Our projects have been targeted at the most vulnerable, with special emphasis placed on helping those groups who may be excluded from accessing water and sanitation on the basis of economic and social factors such as disability, ethnicity, religion, gender, age, social status or HIV/AIDS. We have extended our urban work to respond to the need for assistance from the growing populations in informal slum settlements in and around towns and cities.

We have helped to form thousands of community-based groups and committees to operate and maintain the water and sanitation facilities, with local people being trained as hygiene educators, masons, mechanics, treasurers and engineers - an approach which helps our projects to last long into the future.

Our water resource management initiatives have built our partners' capacities to undertake activities such as water point mapping, water quality testing and integrating water source sustainability and protection into projects through simple methods like rainwater harvesting and improving environmental sanitation.

Our projects have helped people take the first, essential steps out of poverty. The health of whole communities has improved as water-related diseases have declined. Rather than walking miles to collect water or spending time looking after sick children; women can carry out other work and children can go to school.

We're also working hard to change policies in the countries where we work and internationally to ensure the poorest people gain access to water and sanitation, essential human rights.

We can point to specific examples of our work. The ultimate aim of our work is to reduce poverty and improve the quality of people's lives. The people we work with are the best testimony to this, as Sawadogo Talato, the vice president of the water committee in Yaké village, Burkina Faso, explains:

"A lack of water can lead to conflict among people but since we have had the well we are much happier. The women are able to get on with other activities, many of which bring us money. This means we can look after our children better. All the children go to school now. Before the children often had to get water in the morning which kept them from school.

"When the pond dried up even the little ones walked five kilometres and back again twice a day for water. The children used to suffer. They used to have lots of diarrhoea. But now everything is better and they are much healthier. Everything has changed."