- 785 million people lack even a basic dinking-water service, including 144 million people who are dependent on surface writer.1
- Globally, at least 2 billion people use a drinking water source contaminated with faeces.1
- Contaminated water can transmit diseases such diarrhea, cholera, dysentery, typhoid, and polio.
Contaminated drinking water is estimated to cause 485 000 diarrhoeal deaths each year.1 - By 2025, half of the world’s population will be living in water-stressed areas.1
- In least developed countries, 22% of health care facilities have no water service, 21% no sanitation service and 22% no waste management service.1
- Globally, 1/3 of all schools’s lack access to safe water and adequate sanitation. 2
- Every 90 seconds a child dies from a water-related disease.2
- Water-related diseases affect more than 1.5 billion people every year.2
- Water, sanitation and hygiene related disease kill nearly 1 million people each year.2
- The water crisis is the number one global risk based on impact to society (as a measure of devastation), as announced by the World Economic Forum in January 2018.3
- 159 million people still use surface water, and two thirds live in sub-Saharan Africa.2
- 443 million school days are lost each year due to water related diseases, of which 272 million are lost due to diarrhea alone.8
The Crisis
The Global Water Crisis
The Economic Importance of Clean Water
- $260 billion is lost generally each year due to lack of safe water and sanitation.4
- Universal access to safe water and sanitation would result in $32 billion in economic benefits each year from reductions in health care costs and increased productivity due to reduced illnesses.4
- Time spent gathering water around the world translates to $24 billion in lost economic benefits each year.4
- Annual aid water and sanitation amounts to only as $8 billion–far short of the $1 trillion needed to solve this crisis and maintain it long trims.4,5
- Access to credit plays a significant role in triggering household sanitation investments, increasing health and providing families the dignity of a toilet.6
- For every dollar invested in water and sanitation, there is a $4.3 return in the loan of reduced healthcare costs for individuals and society around the world.7
References
- https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/drinking-water
- World Health organization and UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP 2015)
- World Economic Forum Global Risks Report (2015)
- World Health organization – Global costs and benefits of drinking-water-supply and sanitation
- OECD – Aid to Water Supply and Sanitation (2015)
- Water and Sanitation Program – Financing On-Site Sanitation for the Poor, A Six Country Comparative Review and Analysis (2010)
- UN News – Global Perspective Human Stories
- Wash and Education
