This year marked the starting point of our partnership with the Water for Women Fund, an $18 million five-year program funded by the Australian Government that aims to improve the health, equality and wellbeing of Asian and Pacific communities.

At a national conference in August, the Timor-Leste government reaffirmed its commitment to making clean water and sanitation a top priority. Months later, it more than doubled its water and sanitation budget.

Almost everybody living in Manufahi and Liquiçá, the two municipalities in Timor-Leste where WaterAid works, now have a toilet in their house. These districts are expected to celebrate ‘Open Defecation Free’ status next financial year.

All schools in Papua New Guinea are now mandated to have clean water, decent toilets and good hygiene after the country’s Department of Education launched a new policy in August. WaterAid supported the development and drafting of this policy.

Following improvements we’ve been helping to make to 12 healthcare centres across Cambodia, we’ve successfully advocated for all 1100 public health centres across the country to have a similar level of water, toilet and hygiene facilities.

WaterAid has trained 40 staff from district and local government in East Sepik, Papua New Guinea to collect water samples and conduct surveys in 366 rural communities where service levels were previously unknown.

Our good friends at Who Gives A Crap made their biggest donation to WaterAid to date, generously supporting our work building toilets for those in need.

Recognising that change starts in our office, we have commissioned a gender audit in all our offices, reviewed and updated our safeguarding procedures, and are in the process of developing a Reconciliation Action Plan.

In every program we’re part of, in every country we work, there’s an opportunity to think about how we are bringing about better outcomes for the most marginalised people in society.

A popular image of WaterAid’s work is a tap stand or toilet block in a village and the smiling faces of locals who get to use that service. That’s the end goal we all aspire towards, but it’s an image that’s far more complicated than simply turning up to a village, installing some infrastructure and leaving. 

If asked to identify which of the Sustainable Development Goals relate most to WaterAid’s work, most people would jump straight to Goal 6, which focuses on ‘Clean Water and Sanitation’. But if you examine the other 16, you’ll start to notice there are plenty of other contenders. 

They say good things come in threes, and that principle certainly applies when it comes to WaterAid’s work. As important as clean water and decent toilets are, good hygiene is the final and essential piece of the puzzle when it comes to ensuring that people have a healthy, high quality life that is free from diseases.

Our progress this year in Cambodia has reinforced the importance of the ‘sector strengthening’ approach that informs so much of our work. 

Strong partnerships have been a core theme of our Timor-Leste program this year; we’ve consistently found ourselves able to expand our impact and our level of influence by working with others in the sector and by gaining buy-in from national and sub-national leaders.

This year was one of transition for WaterAid Papua New Guinea, with our innovative WaSH and Sports for Development program drawing to a close and our Water For Women-funded project getting underway.

This year we commenced our five-year program with Water for Women, where our goal is to support safer births in the Ayeyarwady region.

11-year-old Annie was among 4,000 Australians who committed to making water their only beverage for the month of March as part of the Water Challenge. Annie exceeded her target of $280 to raise $434, contributing to a fundraising total of $200,000 which will go towards WaterAid’s work.

Model and ambassador Elyse Knowles visited WaterAid’s programs in Delhi, India, sharing our work with her 900,000 Instagram followers while raising awareness of our Water Challenge event. 

As part of the annual Melbourne Water Kids Teaching Kids conference, students from Beaumaris, Carrum and Harkaway Primary Schools prepared musical and dramatic skits to educate their peers about the 2.3 billion people worldwide who don’t have a decent toilet of their own. 

Individual supporters’ donations increased by 22% in 2019. The Water Challenge continued to grow and our tax appeal—which focused on Balbina’s (left) eight hour walk for water—raised the most money of any WaterAid appeal to date.