Our work
1. What is WaterAid?
2. What does WaterAid do?
3. Why water, sanitation and hygiene education?
4. What are the aims of WaterAid's Global strategy for 2009-15?
5. Does WaterAid carry out emergency work?
6. Where does WaterAid work?
7. Why do you work there?
8. There are other countries which need water and sanitation too. Why doesn't WaterAid work there?
9. Does WaterAid work with other organizations?
10. Does WaterAid work with governments?
11. What did WaterAid achieve in 2010/11?
WaterAid is a leading international non-profit organization focused exclusively on improving poor people’s access to safe water, hygiene and sanitation. We work in Africa, Asia and the Pacific region and campaign globally with our partners to realize our vision of a world where everyone has access to these basic human needs.
WaterAid enables the world’s poorest people to gain access to safe
water and sanitation. Together with improved hygiene, these basic human
rights underpin health, education and livelihoods, forming the first,
essential step in overcoming poverty.
We work with local
partners, who understand local issues, and provide them with the skills
and support to help communities set up and manage practical and
sustainable projects that meet their real needs.
We also work
locally and internationally to change policy and practice and ensure
water, hygiene and sanitation’s vital role in reducing poverty is
recognized.
Find out more about what we do.Water and sanitation are basic human rights, vital to reducing poverty around the world. Together with improved hygiene, these essential services are the building blocks for all other development - improving health, education and livelihoods. The holistic provision of these three services helps achieve reduction in disease, prevent death and free up time spent either collecting water or being incapacitated by illness for education and other economic and social development.
WaterAid and its partners are committed to working towards the UN Millennium Development Goals to halve the proportion of people living in poverty around the world by 2015. If the specific targets relating to water and sanitation are missed, progress toward the other goals, such as achieving universal primary education, reducing child mortality and eradicating extreme poverty, will be difficult to achieve.
WaterAid’s Global strategy, which was launched in October 2009, has four key aims:
- To promote and secure poor people's rights and access to safe water, improved hygiene and sanitation
- To support governments and service providers in developing their capacity to deliver safe water, improved hygiene and sanitation
- To advocate for the essential role of safe water, improved hygiene and sanitation in human development
- To further develop as an effective global organisation recognized as a leader in our field and for living our values
The strategy underlines the importance of focusing more attention on developing new and innovative solutions to urban challenges, on prioritizing sanitation and addressing water security. We will increase our emphasis on equity and inclusion, seeking to ensure our programs reach the most marginalized and vulnerable people.
We aim to significantly increase our income, with the aim of raising $160 million globally a year by 2015, and to expand operations from 17 to 30 countries by 2015.
The strategy recognizes how working in partnership with others, particularly governments, is key to maximizing our impact. In everything we do, we will seek to influence decision-makers at all levels to prioritize water and sanitation in their plans to reduce poverty by providing evidence of their essential importance to health, education and livelihoods.
Download a copy of WaterAid’s strategy or watch a film about it. WaterAid is principally a development organization, working with communities on long-term solutions to water and sanitation problems. However, in the places where we work, we endeavor to respond to natural disasters and other emergencies where we can make a useful contribution, especially in protecting or restoring vital water and sanitation services for poor people. For example, WaterAid worked to restore access to water and sanitation following the devastating floods that hit Pakistan in July 2010.
WaterAid currently works in 27 of the world's poorest countries in
Africa, Asia and the Pacific region. These countries are Nicaragua in Central America; Angola,
Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Ghana, Lesotho, Liberia, Kenya, Madagascar,
Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Swaziland,
Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia in Africa; Bangladesh, India, Nepal and
Pakistan in Asia; and Laos, Papua New Guinea and Timor-Leste in the
Pacific region.
View a map of where WaterAid works.Visit WaterAid's international website to read about WaterAid's new country programs.
The countries where we work are selected based on the following criteria:
- There is potential for WaterAid’s work to be effective and have a long-term positive impact.
- The country lies at the lower end of the UNDP (United Nations Development Program) Human Development Index, or has pockets of extreme poverty,
and a significant part of the population in the country lacks access to
water and sanitation.
- There is an opportunity for WaterAid’s work to be coordinated with, and add value to, that of others.
- There is potential for us to influence other organizations to improve access to safe water and sanitation.
- There is an opportunity for WaterAid to widen our experience and knowledge giving us greater credibility to influence global change.
We have just expanded operations from 17 to 27 countries. Our aims
are that by 2015 we will be working in a total of 30 countries by 2015
and that 25 million more people will have access to safe water, be
practicing good hygiene and have improved sanitation services as a
result of our investment in partner organizations.
As the scale of the global water and sanitation problem is so vast, we
are unable to reach everyone who needs support. However, through our
global advocacy work we aim to change policies and practices around the
world that impact upon people's access to water and sanitation. We aim
for our influencing work to contribute to 100 million more people
having safe water, improved hygiene and sanitation by 2015.
The problems that WaterAid seeks to address are large and complex, and require the resources and expertise of many stakeholders—international and local nonprofit organizations, national governments, international donors, and others—if lasting solutions are to be found.
We continuously seek ways of collaborating with others so that our work has as much impact as possible. This is why we work with local organizations, through the systems put in place by country governments.
In 2010/11, WaterAid funded over 400 partners: a portfolio of national
and local governments, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), networks,
research and academic institutions and community-based organizations,
among others. We built their capacity to be more effective in service
delivery and in advocacy and campaigning.
As local governments in many of the countries in which we work have
been given the responsibility, but not the skills or resources, to
develop water and sanitation in their regions, WaterAid has plans to
work more closely with them in the coming years to develop their
capacity to carry out their work effectively.
We also work with other international NGOs, research institutes and
alliances on our campaigns, reports and advocacy work – both in the
countries where we work and internationally.
We are also a founding member of the End Water Poverty campaign, a
coalition of like-minded organizations calling for water and sanitation
for all.
Find out more. WaterAid believes that all governments have a responsibility to ensure there is adequate water and sanitation provision for their citizens. However, in many of the countries where we work there is often a lack of capacity and funds to make this happen. WaterAid therefore works with governments, and campaigns nationally and internationally, to help ensure that the world's poorest people gain access to these basic needs.
We receive funding from donor governments including the US and British governments. We also work closely with many local government departments, which have been given the responsibility, but often not the resources or training, to carry out water and sanitation work in their area.
WaterAid also represents non governmental organizations on the Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council, one of the main international groupings of government and professional people working in the global drinking water sector.
In the year 2010/11 WaterAid and its partners helped 1.45 million people gain
access to safe water and 1.62 million people gain access to sanitation.
We funded more than 400 partners and worked with 700 organizations in Africa and Asia. This brings the cumulative number of people we have reached with safe water since our inception in 1981 to nearly 16 million people.
While each new completed project is a cause for celebration, it is vital that water continues to flow, latrines are kept in good working order, and improved hygiene behavior persists year in, year out. We are equally as proud of our work to maximize the lifespan of the benefits our programs bring, particularly by putting communities at the helm of establishing their own sustainable management and maintenance systems for water and sanitation facilities.
We believe in prioritizing the needs of marginalized people and have worked hard this year to ensure the water and sanitation needs of disadvantaged people, such as women, children, disabled people and those living with HIV/AIDS are recognized and responded to.
Today, 884 million people worldwide do not have access to safe drinking water and 2.6 billion do not have adequate sanitation . Compounded by a lack of good hygiene practices, the result is a cycle of ill-health and extreme poverty for poor communities across the developing world.
In 2011/12 we aim to reach 1.4 million people with safe water and 2.5 million people with sanitation.
For every person helped, the difference could be life-saving, and most certainly will be life-changing. Pulitzer Prize-winning author Tina Rosenberg poignantly described the consequences of water scarcity and the impacts of WaterAid’s program in Ethiopia in her feature, The Burden of Thirst, published in National Geographic magazine in April 2010.
Ms. Rosenberg reflected: “Communities where clean water becomes accessible and plentiful are transformed. All the hours spent previously hauling water can be spent to grow more food, raise more animals, or even start income-producing businesses. Families no longer drink microbe soup, so they spend less time sick or caring for loved ones stricken with waterborne disease. Most important, freedom from water slavery means girls go to school and choose a better life.”
To read more about WaterAid's achievements in the year 2010/11 please see our Annual Report.