Round up of the year
By Barbara Frost, WaterAid's Chief Executive
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| Chief Executive, Barbara Frost, meets with community members in Bangladesh to hear about water, sanitation and hygiene issues in the country. |
| Credit: WaterAid/Abir Abdullah |
18 December 2009
2009 has been a challenging but incredibly exciting year for WaterAid.
Around the world we have achieved a huge amount and thanks to the commitment of our supporters, staff, partners and communities one million more people now have access to safe water and over two million more have improved sanitation.
We also campaigned with considerable success to raise awareness of the importance of safe water and sanitation as essential services, vital for an end to poverty.
Despite the economic downturn our supporters' commitment and inspiration saw us raise a fantastic £44 million last year, up 9% on the previous year.
While of course we have felt the impact of the recession here, it is the poorest people in the countries where we work that are always most affected, as I saw for myself this year in Bangladesh.
There I saw the final stages of a £17.5 million programme of work funded by the UK Department for International Development through which 1.8 million people gained access to clean water and 5.7 million to sanitation.
An independent evaluation of the five year programme showed that an estimated £6 million has been saved in medical costs for households. These figures show one of the big issues that we have been highlighting in our policy work this year: that water and sanitation really are the foundation for human development.
We launched our ambitious new Global strategy for 2009 to 2015 in October this year and started working in eight new countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, bringing the number of countries we work in to 26 worldwide. We also opened a WaterAid office in Sweden which will raise vital funds and influence change.
Over the next five years, through our investment in our partners – local governments, community based organisations, non governmental organisations and local businesses – we aim to reach 25 million people directly and four times this number indirectly through our advocacy and influence work.
As ever, we look to our supporters and our partners to help us to achieve our targets. There is a lot that everyone can do to get involved and help to reach the 884 million people without safe water and 2.5 billion without sanitation.
Take for example one of our youngest supporters, Hemi Poulton, who has given up her birthday presents for donations to WaterAid since her fifth birthday four years ago and this year has organised a sponsored bike ride. In total she has raised around £2,000 for us and we're delighted to hear that she has just won the Woman's Own Children of Courage award for Young Fundraiser for her wonderful support which is, I'm sure you will agree, truly inspirational.
People around the world are doing amazing things to help transform people's lives by improving access to safe water, hygiene and sanitation in the world's poorest communities.
Thank you all for your ongoing commitment and support.
With best wishes for the festive season,
Barbara Frost
Chief Executive, WaterAid
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