Our work

1. What is WaterAid?

2. What does WaterAid do?

3. Why water, sanitation and improved hygiene?

4. What are the aims of WaterAid's new Global strategy for 2009-15?

5. Does WaterAid carry out emergency work?

5a. Is WaterAid involved in relief work in Haiti following the earthquake?

6. Where does WaterAid work?

6a. Is WaterAid's work in Nigeria affected by the recent violence there?

7. Why do you work where you work?

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

9. Does WaterAid work with other organisations?

10. Do you carry out work with governments?

11. Why can't governments with considerable revenues from things like oil and trade afford to supply water and sanitation to their own people?

12. In democratic countries, why don't people demand better services from their government?

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

14. Why do people in Africa and Asia have to contribute to their projects?

15. Isn't the real problem population growth?

1. What is WaterAid?

WaterAid is an international non governmental organisation focused exclusively on improving poor people’s access to safe water, hygiene and sanitation. 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 needs.

2. What does WaterAid do?

WaterAid enables the world’s poorest people to gain access to safe water and sanitation. Together with improved hygiene, these basic human rights underpin health, education and livelihoods, forming 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 work locally and internationally to change policy and practice and ensure water, hygiene and sanitation’s vital role in reducing poverty is recognised.

Find out more about what we do
Find out more about our technologies 

3. Why water, sanitation and improved hygiene?

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, hygiene 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. What are the aims of WaterAid’s new Global strategy for 2009-2015?

1. To promote and secure poor people's rights and access to safe water, improved hygiene and sanitation
   
2. To support governments and service providers in developing their capacity to deliver safe water, improved hygiene and sanitation
3. To advocate for the essential role of safe water, improved hygiene and sanitation in human development
4. To further develop as an effective global organisation recognised as a leader in our field and for living our values

The new strategy underlines the importance of focusing more attention on developing new and innovative solutions to urban challenges, on prioritising sanitation and addressing water security. We will increase our emphasis on equity and inclusion, seeking to ensure our programmes reach the most marginalised and vulnerable people. We aim to significantly increase our income, with the aim of raising £100 million a year by 2015, and to expand operations from 17 to 30 countries by 2015.

The strategy recognises how working in partnership with others, particularly governments, is key to maximising our impact.  In everything we do, we will seek to influence decision makers at all levels to prioritise water and sanitation in their plans to reduce poverty by providing evidence of their essential importance to health, education and livelihoods.

Download a copy of WaterAid’s new strategy or watch a film about it.

5. 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.

5a. Is WaterAid involved in relief work in Haiti following the earthquake?

Updated February 2010: WaterAid is deeply saddened by the devastation and loss of life caused by the 7.0 magnitude earthquake that hit Haiti on 12 January 2010.

It is estimated that at least 170,000 people died in the earthquake, and more than a million people were left homeless. The disaster has caused widespread destruction of buildings and infrastructure, including water supplies and sanitation facilities. Safe water is in short supply, leaving survivors vulnerable to deadly water-related diseases.

There is an urgent need for water purification kits in the short term and work to rehabilitate destroyed water and sanitation systems in the long term.

WaterAid does not currently operate in central or South America and as such we do not have offices or staff in the region to intervene on the ground in Haiti.  However we are ready and available to offer advice and any practical assistance that we can to the emergency agencies operating in the current post-earthquake situation.

If you would like to make a donation in support of relief efforts in Haiti, we recommend you visit the Disasters and Emergencies Committee website at www.dec.org.uk or call 0370 60 60 900.

6. Where does WaterAid work?

WaterAid currently works in 26 of the world's poorest countries in Africa, Asia and the Pacific region. These countries are Angola, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Ghana, Lesotho, Liberia, Kenya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia in Africa; Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Pakistan in Asia. In addition, WaterAid in Australia has three country programmes in Laos, Papua New Guinea and Timor-Leste in the Pacific region.

Over the next five years, we will gradually expand operations to other countries in sub-Saharan Africa, Asia and the Pacific region, as well as investigating the potential to work in Latin America and the Caribbean. We aim to be working in 30 developing countries by 2015, as well as supporting networks in many more.

Read about WaterAid's new country programmes. 

6a. Is WaterAid's work in Nigeria affected by the violence there?

Updated 8 March 2010: We were very concerned to hear of the violence near the city of Jos in Nigeria at the weekend. The situation in Jos township itself is believed to be calm; the affected villages are about 10km away in Plateau state, which is not an area where WaterAid is operational.

However, the situation remains tense as there is a fear of reprisal attacks that may spill over into neighbouring states. Due to the potentially volatile situation, WaterAid field staff in Jos have been advised to keep safe and stay away from affected areas.  WaterAid in Nigeria will continue to monitor the situation on the ground closely and for the moment our work to bring safe water, sanitation and hygiene education to the region remains unaffected.

7. Why do you work where you do?

The countries where we work are selected based on the following criteria:

• There is potential for WaterAid’s work to be effective and have a long-term positive impact.
• The country lies at the lower end of the United Nations Development Programme Human Development Index, or has pockets of extreme poverty, and a significant part of the population in the country lacks access to water and sanitation.
• There is an opportunity for WaterAid’s work to be coordinated with, and add value to, that of others.
• There is potential for us to influence other organisations to improve access to safe water and sanitation.
• There is an opportunity for WaterAid to widen our experience and knowledge,
  giving us greater credibility to influence global change.

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

We have just expanded operations from 17 to 26 countries and have plans for significant further expansion over the next five years. Our aims are that by 2015 we will be working in a total of 30 countries by 2015 and that 25 million more people will have access to safe water, be practising good hygiene and have improved sanitation services as a result of our investment in partner organisations.  

As the scale of the global water and sanitation problem is so vast, we are unable to reach everyone who needs support. However, through our global advocacy work we aim to change policies and practices around the world that impact upon people's access to water and sanitation. We aim for our influencing work to contribute to 100 million more people having safe water, improved hygiene and sanitation by 2015.

9. 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. In 2008/9, WaterAid worked with over 1,100 partners: a portfolio of national and local governments, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), networks, research and academic institutions and community-based organisations, among others. We built their capacity to be more effective in service delivery and in advocacy and campaigning.

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.

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. 

10. Do you carry out work with governments?

WaterAid does work with many different levels of government in many different ways.
We receive government funding for our programmes, including from the UK Government’s Department for International Development, the Big Lottery Fund, the Dutch Lottery and the EC.

Through our advocacy and campaigning work we seek to influence the policy of international governments. For example, we support the End Water Poverty campaign in lobbying for water and sanitation issues to be prioritised at meetings of the G8 and the UN.

WaterAid does not give money to any national governments. However, we offer support to the national governments of the countries where we work in formulating their national water and sanitation plans. For example, a study developed by WaterAid in Nepal is being used to inform the development of the government’s master plan on sanitation and in Uganda WaterAid and local communities have lobbied for national government budget lines for sanitation. In Malawi WaterAid has attached a member of staff to the planning department of the Ministry of Water Development to support mapping of water points.

At the local level we partner with many local government departments in delivering water and sanitation services to vulnerable groups. Through decentralisation processes many local governments have been given the responsibility of providing water and sanitation services, but not the resources to do so. We invest in developing their skills to independently implement low cost, sustainable water and sanitation services in the future. Any financial support we give to local governments is earmarked for water and sanitation services, rather than general work.

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.

11. Why can't governments with considerable revenues from things like oil and trade afford to supply water and sanitation to their own people?

WaterAid believes that governments should fulfil their responsibilities to provide basic human rights like water and sanitation to all of their citizens. However, among national governments and across the aid sector, water and sanitation are often given a lower priority than other development sectors, such as health and education. This is despite overwhelming evidence of water and sanitation’s fundamental role in helping people to overcome poverty.

WaterAid campaigns with our partners locally and internationally to change governments’ policy and practice. We work with our partners to influence the development agenda on every level and ensure that water, hygiene and sanitation’s vital role in reducing poverty is recognised.

In many of the countries where we work the national government has given responsibility to local governments to provide water and sanitation services. However, many are under-resourced and do not have the skills, capacity or finance to manage this work. We therefore work in partnership with many local governments to help them gain the necessary skills and experience to carry out their work effectively.

For example we map the location of existing water and sanitation facilities to see where facilities are required so that any new work reaches the people who are most in need. We then work with local governments to build their capacity to deliver on their responsibilities to provide these essential services.

12. In democratic countries, why don't people demand better services from their government?

Often, poor people are not made aware of their entitlements to basic services. ‘Citizens’ Action’ is a WaterAid initiative where we work with communities to build awareness of their rights and to facilitate dialogue with those government agencies responsible for delivering it.

Mamona is just one person who is testament to this. She lives with thousands of others in the slums of Gwalior in India. Before, her community had no safe water or sanitation, but since working with WaterAid’s partner Sambav, she has formed a women’s group and all sorts of changes have taken place. First, they tackled the water, then they worked on the drainage and then looked at hygiene so that families can access latrines:

“Before, when we tried to speak to our local (government) representative, they never paid us any attention," Mamona explains. "Now we have links with the Commissioner and we can demand things from him directly. We can even shake him to make things happen! We are so empowered now and we know we have an organisation behind us, supporting us. Now we can start all sorts of development. We can fight for our rights now."

In other cases, poor people are simply denied access to basic services because they have do not own the land on which they live. WaterAid is working with communities in these unplanned settlements, or slums, to demand connections to safe water supplies and demand technical assistance to improve their sanitation. People in these circumstances are simply calling for equitable access to basic human rights.

Read about how WaterAid and local partner DSK have helped squatter communities in Dhaka, Bangladesh gain legal access to safe water supplies.

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

In the year 2008/9 WaterAid and its partners helped more than 1.1 million people gain access to safe water and over two million people gain access to sanitation.

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.

Throughout 2008, the UN International Year of Sanitation gave a key focus to our lobbying and campaigning. WaterAid, as part of the End Water Poverty coalition, worked hard to raise the profile of the neglected issue of sanitation at national, regional and international levels and demand that governments act to address the sanitation crisis.

There was a number of important achievements during the year, including African governments committing to take immediate action and invest a minimum of 0.5% Gross Domestic Product in sanitation, along with G8 leaders acknowledging the importance of sanitation and the need to act.

WaterAid’s report Tackling the silent killer – The case for sanitation was launched at the G8 Summit in Japan in July 2008 and received media coverage at national and international levels, including in the prestigious medical journal, The Lancet. In May 2009, the release of WaterAid’s report Fatal neglect – How health systems are failing to comprehensively address child mortality raised awareness of the political neglect of investment in safe water and sanitation that play a crucial role in reducing the spread of diarrhoeal diseases, the second biggest killer of children under five worldwide. 

WaterAid’s Global strategy covering the period 2009-2015 seeks to further strengthen our work to influence decision-makers at all levels to prioritise water and sanitation in their plans to reduce poverty by providing evidence of their essential importance to health, education and livelihoods. 

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.  Ultimately, the people we work with are the best testimony to the impact of our work, as 61 year old Hari Maya Poudel from the Nepalese village of Amarkhu, which has benefited from a gravity flow water system supported by WaterAid, explained:

“Before, I had to get to the source by 3am to collect water.  If I went later than this there would be no water left as so many other women would go there.  It was very hard. I had to carry two buckets on my back at the same time.  Life is very different now.  I don’t need to get up in the middle of the night.  I can now spend more time cleaning, kitchen gardening, feeding the cattle, and looking after my grandchildren.”

14. Why do people in Africa and Asia have to contribute to their projects?

Community involvement is vital to the success of our projects. In places where wells or latrines have simply been built without community involvement they will often fall into disrepair as there is nobody there to maintain the services or fix them when they break.

Our projects work around community ownership. In the early project stages we discuss problems and solutions with communities. When they fully understand how poor water, sanitation and hygiene fuel diseases they will want to change their environment themselves.

WaterAid and our partners then help communities to develop the skills to set up, operate and maintain their own water and sanitation facilities and learn about good hygiene. In this way, communities themselves own the projects and will use them properly and maintain them long into the future.

Often, to ensure that the project operates effectively, community members will be asked to contribute to the scheme, either by making regular small payments or contributing at the start of the project. The amounts involved are small, and when people are unable to pay they can often contribute labour or materials instead, or are subsidised by others. The money collected pays for the set up costs and maintenance of projects, and often the salaries of staff, often from the local community, who keep the schemes in good working order.

Often these contributions are significantly less than the communities were paying already for their water, particularly from expensive vendors in urban areas or indeed for medicines for treating the sick. In addition communities with water and sanitation in place often report being better off. Without spending hours each day collecting water women can carry out other work and generate an income and children can go to school.

15. Isn't the real problem population growth?

Currently standing at nearly seven billion, the world’s population is likely to reach nine billion by 2050, with most of the increases taking place in the developing world. Every human being has a right to life and a right to development. There are enough resources in the world for everyone if they are used efficiently and shared equitably. However, uneven distribution of resources and varying rates of population growth mean that in some areas the rate at which renewable water resources are being consumed threatens to exceed the rate at which they can be recharged and reused. The central challenge therefore is not about controlling population growth, but rather promoting social, economic and technological developments necessary to ensure efficient and equitable resource use.

High birth rates can be a symptom of a lack of women’s empowerment. This can be the case if they are not able to choose how many children they have, due, for example, to a lack of education or lack of access to contraceptives. High birth rates can also be a symptom of poverty and underdevelopment. In situations where child mortality is very high people tend to have more children. Poor households also tend to have more children in order help grow food and earn money for the family.

Studies have shown that improvements in women’s rights and economic development are among the most important factors leading to a reduction in population growth. Both of these are contributed to by improved access to water and sanitation, which has been shown to improve girls’ school attendance, to help empower women, and to free up their time for economic activities. The demographic transition model shows how falls in birth rates lagged behind falls in death rates following industrialisation in the USA, Europe and Japan. If the same proves true for developing countries, we can expect a delay of several years before the impact of economic development is seen in terms of reduced population growth.    

WaterAid believes that in the context of the sharing of water resources, everyone has a right of access to safe and affordable drinking water and basic sanitation.  All countries must have a national water resource management plan to enable appropriate allocation of water resources, manage competing claims and ensure all have their basic entitlement to drinking water secured.