Years of insufficient public investment following the upheaval and devastation of war natural disasters, contamination from mining and agricultural activities and extensive cattle ranching causing deforestation and soil erosion, have left many people without safe water. Similarly, nearly half the country's population lives without an adequate toilet.

Water-related diseases exact a huge toll on families' health, keeping children out of school and stifling economic growth. The exhausting task of water collection usually falls to women and girls, who have little time left for work or school.

WaterAid's Nicaragua program opened in 2011. We work in the North Atlantic Autonomous region on the Caribbean Coast; a remote, isolated region of mainly indigenous and afro-descendent people with an annual population growth rate of more than 4%, the highest in the country. Just one in five of the 314,000-strong population has access to safe water and sanitation and extreme poverty is widespread.

We are helping improve and expand water and sanitation services in the region by training local people to install and maintain rope pumps (a simple type of water pump), install eco-toilets (a type of pour-flush latrine), drill manual borehole wells, clean and disinfect existing hand-dug wells, and install rainwater catchment systems.

To identify the communities most in need of assistance, we are helping them in mapping current access to water and sanitation. Our help is focused on establishing water and sanitation facilities in schools as well as households.

In Nicaragua last year we reached:

• 3,000 people with safe water
• 18 people with improved sanitation.