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More information about WaterAid in India
This film explains how, by targeting women as key agents of change, real progress can be achieved.
Clean water is essential for life, but one in eight of the world's population does not have access to it.
This, and lack of safe sanitation, result in over two million people dying from water-related diseases every year.
In India, almost 70% of people are living without something as basic as a toilet. Every year 386,000 Indian children die before their fifth birthday from entirely preventable diarrhoeal diseases.
WaterAid in India helps communities gain sustainable access to, and control over, safe and adequate water and sanitation facilities.
We inform communities about their water and sanitation entitlements and help train villagers to maintain the new infrastructure. We also support communities to set up village water and sanitation committees to manage the project.
As sanitation coverage in India is low, WaterAid's projects focus on the poor by creating a demand for latrines through hygiene education, with the help of training manuals.
As members of the community learn that poor hygiene causes disease, loss of productivity and expenses through costly medicines, they are inspired to develop their own solutions.
Child deaths (under five) from diarrhoea per annum 320,000
Life expectancy 64 years
Water supply coverage 88%
Sanitation coverage 31%
Below poverty line 28%
Development index 134
Adult literacy no data
Sources:
World Bank (2011) World Development Indicators database - databank.worldbank.org, WHO / UNICEF (2010) Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP) report 2010, UNDP (2011), Human Development Report 2011
NB. Official statistics tend to understate the extent of water and sanitation problems, sometimes by a large factor. There are not sufficient resources available for accurate monitoring of either population or coverage. Varying definitions of water and sanitation coverage are used and national figures mask large regional differences in coverage.
What we do
320,000
