Statistics

Since it was established, WaterAid has reached 13.44 million people with safe water.

Credit: Charlie Bibby/FT

• A global crisis
• What has WaterAid done?
• Sanitation
• Hygiene
• Water
• Education and livelihoods
• Millennium Development Goals
• Financing the sector
• Water and sanitation in history

A global crisis

• 884 million people in the world do not have access to safe water. This is roughly one in eight of the world's population. (WHO/UNICEF)
• 2.5 billion people in the world do not have access to adequate sanitation, this is almost two fifths of the world's population. (WHO/UNICEF)
• 1.4 million children die every year from diarrhoea caused by unclean water and poor sanitation - 4,000 child deaths a day or one child every 20 seconds. This equates to 160 infant school classrooms lost every single day to an entirely preventable public health crisis. (WHO/WaterAid)

What has WaterAid done?

• Since WaterAid was established in 1981 we have reached 13.44 million people with safe water. Since 2004 we have reached 8.16 million people with sanitation.
• Last year WaterAid reached over one million people with safe water and over two million people with sanitation.
• Just £15 can enable one person to access safe water, improved hygiene and sanitation. (WaterAid)
• See our animation, Ten steps to total sanitation 
• Read our Annual Report

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Sanitation

• Diarrhoea kills more children every year than AIDS, malaria and measles combined. (WHO)
• Children living in households with no toilet are twice as likely to get diarrhoea as those with a toilet. (WEDC)
• Every year, around 60 million children in the developing world are born into households without access to sanitation. (UN Water)
• One gram of human faeces can contain 10,000,000 viruses, 1,000,000 bacteria, 1,000 parasite cysts, 100 parasite eggs. (UNICEF)
• At any one time half the hospital beds in developing countries are filled with people suffering from diarrhoea. (UNDP)
• Watch our film, Health is wealth
• Find out more about sanitation issues

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Hygiene

• Hand-washing with soap at critical times can reduce the incidence of diarrhoea by up to 47%. (UN Water)
• The integrated approach of providing water, sanitation and hygiene reduces the number of deaths caused by diarrhoeal diseases by an average of 65%. (WHO)
• Find out about hygiene issues

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Water

• The weight of water that women in Africa and Asia carry on their heads is commonly 20kg, the same as the average UK airport luggage allowance. (HDR)
• The average person in the developing world uses 10 litres of water every day for their drinking, washing and cooking. (WSSCC)
• The average European uses 200 litres of water every day for their drinking, washing and cooking. North Americans use 400 litres. (HDR)
• On current trends over the next 20 years humans will use 40% more water than they do now. (UNEP)
• Agriculture accounts for over 80% of the world's water consumption. (UNEP)
• 97.5% of the earth's water is saltwater. If the world's water fitted into a bucket, only one teaspoonful would be drinkable. (HDR)
• Find out more about water issues

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Education and livelihoods

Kenedy Gondwe's family have been able to earn an income from growing maize since they gained access to clean water.

Credit: WaterAid/Layton Thompson

• For every $1 invested in water and sanitation, $8 is returned in increased productivity. (UNDP)
• Lack of safe water and sanitation costs sub-Saharan Africa around 5% of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) each year. (UNDP)
• 443 million school days are lost each year due to water-related diseases.
• 11% more girls attend school when sanitation is available. (UK DFID)
• 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. (UK DFID)

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Millennium Development Goals

• 1.2 billion people gained access to sanitation between 1990 and 2004. (UN Water)
• Nearly half the people who gained access to water between 1990 and 2006 live in India and China. If this rapid progress in these two countries were discounted, we would not achieve the water MDG target to halve the proportion of those living without safe water until 2025.
• 1.7 billion people will still need sanitation even if the 2015 MDG sanitation goal to halve the proportion of people without sanitation is reached. (WHO/UNICEF)
• The annual cost of meeting the water and sanitation MDG targets up to 2015 is US$11.3 billion. (UN Water)
• Europeans spend about US$10 billion on ice cream every year. (HDR)
• No sub-Saharan African country is on-track to meet the sanitation MDG. (WHO/UNICEF)
• Find out more about the Millennium Development Goals

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Financing the sector

• Over the past 10 years, aid to health and HIV/AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa has increased by nearly 500%, while aid to water and sanitation has increased by only 79%. (OECD)

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Water and sanitation in history 

• South Korea made huge investments in water and sanitation during the 1960s, when its per capita income was the same as Ghana's, and during that decade, under-five mortality more than halved, while the number of medical staff stayed virtually the same. (WaterAid)
• In the UK the expansion of water and sanitation infrastructure in the 1880s contributed to a 15 year increase in life expectancy in the following four decades. (HDR, 2006)

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Abbreviations used
DFID – UK Department for International Development
HDR - UN Human Development Report 
OECD – Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
UNDP – United Nations Development Programme
UNEP – United National Environment Programme
UNICEF – United Nations Children’s Fund
WEDC – Water Engineering Department, University of Loughborough
WHO – World Health Organization
WSSCC – Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council

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