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Statistics
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| Since it was established, WaterAid has reached 14.38 million people with safe water. |
| Credit: Charlie Bibby/FT |
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)
- 2.6 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 1981, we have reached 15.89 million people with safe water
- Since 2004, we have reached 11.02 million people with sanitation
- In 2010/11 we reached 1.45 million people with safe water and 1.62 million people with sanitation.
- Just £15 can enable one person to access a lasting supply of safe water, improved hygiene and sanitation. (WaterAid)
- 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 given time, close to half the people in the developing world are suffering from one or more of the main diseases associated with dirty water and inadequate sanitation such as diarrhoea, guinea worm, trachoma and schistosomiasis. (UNDP Human Development Report 2006)
- Half the hospital beds in developing countries are filled with people suffering from diseases associated with poor water, sanitation and hygiene. (UNDP Human Development Report 2006)
- Watch our film, Health is wealth
- See our animation, Ten steps to total sanitation
- 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
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| 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, on average $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)
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Millennium Development Goals
- The world is on track to meet or even exceed the MDG for safe drinking water – to halve the proportion of people without access to safe water by 2015. However, even though we are on-track globally, 884 million people are still without access. (WHO/UNICEF)
- The world is seriously off-track to meet the sanitation MDG target – to halve the proportion of people without access to sanitation by 2015. If current rates of progress continue, the global sanitation goal will be met 30 years too late. In Sub-Saharan Africa, the sanitation target in that region is not due to be met for another 200 years. (WHO/UNICEF)
- Nearly half the people who gained access to water between 1990 and 2008 live in India and China. (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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