KEY STATISTICS:
- 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)
- Just £15 can enable one person to access safe water, improved hygiene and sanitation. (WaterAid)
- For every $1 invested in water and sanitation, $8 is returned. (UNDP)
- 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)
- 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 2006)
- 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)
This gravity flow scheme reaches 1256 people in Tigray, Ethiopia. Photo: WaterAid/Caroline Irby
SANITATION:
Every year, the average person produces 35 kilos of faeces and 500 litres of urine. (UN Water)
- One gram of human faeces can contain 10,000,000 viruses, 1,000,000 bacteria, 1000 parasite cysts, 100 parasite eggs. (UNICEF)
- No sub-Saharan African country is on-track to meet the sanitation MDG. (WHO/UNICEF)
- Every year, around 60 million children in the developing world are born into households without access to sanitation. (UN Water)
- Children living in households with no toilet are twice as likely to get diarrhea as those with a toilet. (WEDC)
- In the developing world as a whole, around 90% of sewage is discharged untreated into rivers, polluting them and affecting plant and aquatic life. (UN)
HEALTH & DISEASE:
- At any one time half the hospital beds in developing countries are filled with people suffering from diarrhoea. (UNDP)
- Children in poor environments often carry 1,000 parasitic worms in their bodies at a time. (UNICEF)
- Intestinal worms infect about 10% of the population of the developing world. Intestinal parasitic infections can lead to malnutrition, anaemia and stunted growth. (WHO)
Water transportation is a daily struggle. Women & girls walk for miles and carry up to 40 lbs of water.
EDUCATION & ECONOMICS:
- 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)
- 40 billion working hours are spent carrying water each year in Africa. (Cosgrove and Rijsberman, 1998)
- 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)
MILLENNIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS:
- 1.2 billion people gained access to sanitation between 1990 and 2004. (UN Water)
- 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)
- Cost of meeting the sanitation MDG target every year until 2015: US$9.5 billion. If sustained the same investment could achieve basic sanitation for the entire world within 20 years. US$9.5 billion a year is 1% of annual world military spending and an estimated one-third of what the world spends on bottled water every year. (UN Water)
- Cost of meeting the water and sanitation MDG targets every year until 2015 is US$11.3 billion. (UN Water)
Water, the source of life, and source of many of life's basic problems. A sad global reality.
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)
- The UK Department for International Development is set to double funding for water to Africa to £95 million per year by 2008 with a further doubling to £200 million per year by 2011. (UK DFID)
WATER USE:
- The average European uses 200 litres of water every day. North Americans use 400 litres. (HDR, 2006)
- The average person in the developing world uses 10 litres of water every day for their drinking, washing and cooking. (WSSCC)
- An old lavatory uses at least nine litres of water a flush; a low-flush model uses as little as three litres. Each household in the UK uses about 50 litres a person a day for flushing; 35% of domestic water use. (Environment Agency)
- 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)
- The average amount of water needed to produce one kilogramme of potatoes is 1000 litres, wheat is 1450 litres and rice is 3450 litres. (Gleick, 2001)
WATER IN THE WORLD:
- 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, 2006)
- While the world’s population tripled in the 20th century, the use of renewable water resources has grown six-fold. Within the next fifty years, the world population will increase by another 40 to 50%. (World Water Council)
Abbreviations used
DFID – UK Department for International Development
HDR – UN Human Development Report (2006)
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
Source: Wateraid.org
