Statistics

• 768 million people in the world do not have access to safe water. This is roughly 11% of the world's population. (WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP) Report 2013 update)

• 2.5 billion people in the world do not have access to adequate sanitation, almost two fifths of the world's population. (WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP) Report 2013 update)

• Around 700,000 children die every year from diarrhea caused by unsafe water and poor sanitation – that's almost 2,000 children a day.
  (WaterAid 2012/WHO 2008/The Lancet 2012)

• Lack of safe water and sanitation costs sub-Saharan Africa around 5% of its Gross Domestic Product each year. (UNDP)
  

• Just $25 can enable one person to access a lasting supply of safe water, improved hygiene and sanitation. (WaterAid)
  

• Hand-washing with soap at critical times can reduce the incidence of diarrhea by up to 47%. (UN Water)
  

• The integrated approach of providing water, sanitation and hygiene reduces the number of deaths caused by diarrheal diseases by an average of 65%. (WHO)

• For every $1 invested in water and sanitation, an average of $4 is returned in increased productivity.
  (Reference: Hutton, Global costs and benefits of drinking-water supply and sanitation interventions to reach the MDG target and universal coverage, WHO, Geneva, 2012: page 4)

• The weight of water that women in Africa and Asia carry on their heads is commonly 40 pounds, the same as an airport luggage allowance.

• Water and sanitation infrastructure helps people take the first essential step out of the cycle of poverty and disease. In the UK the expansion of sanitation infrastructure in the 1880s contributed to a 15 year increase in life expectancy in the following four decades.

What has WaterAid done?

• Since 1981, we have reached 17.5 million people with safe water.
  
  
• Since 2004, we have reached 12.9 million people with sanitation.
  
  
• In 2011-2012 we reached 1.6 million people with safe water and 1.9 million people with sanitation.
  
  
• Just $25 can enable one person to access safe water, improved hygiene and sanitation.  Donate now.
  

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.

Water-related diseases

• At any one time, half of the developing world’s hospital beds are occupied by patients suffering from diarrhea. (UNDP)

• Intestinal worms infect about 10% of the population of the developing world. Intestinal parasitic infections can lead to malnutrition, anemia and stunted growth. (WHO)
  
  
• Children in poor environments often carry 1,000 parasitic worms in their bodies at a time. (UNICEF)

Water use

• The average North American uses 400 liters of water every day.
  
  
• The average person in the developing world uses 10 liters of water every day for their drinking, washing and cooking. (Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council (WSSCC))
  

• The average amount of water needed to produce one kilogram of potatoes is 1000 liters, wheat is 1450 liters and rice is 3450 liters. (Gleick 2001)

Sanitation

• Every year, the average person produces 35 kilos of feces and 500 liters of urine. (UN Water)

• One gram of human feces 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 Millennium Development Goal target of halving the proportion of people without sanitation between 1990 and 2015. (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)

Education and livelihoods

• 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.

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