Children
Every 20 seconds, a child dies from a water-related illness
Women
Women spend 200 million hours a day collecting water
Water
More than 3x more people lack water than live in the United States
Disease
The majority of illness is caused by fecal matter
Sanitation
More people have a mobile than a toilet
Economic
Lack of community involvement causes 50% of other projects to fail

In just one day, more than 200 million hours of women's time is consumed for the most basic of human needs — collecting water for domestic use.

This lost productivity is greater than the combined number of hours worked in a week by employees at Wal*Mart, United Parcel Service, McDonald's, IBM, Target, and Kroger, according to Gary White, co-founder of Water.org.

Millions of women and children spend several hours a day collecting water from distant, often polluted sources. (1)

A study by the International Water and Sanitation Centre (IRC) of community water and sanitation projects in 88 communities found that projects designed and run with the full participation of women are more sustainable and effective than those that do not. This supports an earlier World Bank study that found that women's participation was strongly associated with water and sanitation project effectiveness. (7)

Resource Links

Look for more facts in our collection of Water Resource Links.

References

  1. 2006 United Nations Human Development Report.
  2. Number estimated from statistics in the 2006 United Nations Human Development Report.
  3. Asian Development Bank web site. 2009.
  4. The Discovery Channel web site. 2009.
  5. UNICEF/WHO. 2008. Progress on Drinking Water and Sanitation: Special Focus on Sanitation.
  6. UN. 2007. International Year of Sanitation Global Launch
  7. UN Water. 2008. Gender, Water and Sanitation: A Policy Brief.
  8. UN Water. 2008. Tackling a Global Crisis: International Year of Sanitation 2008
  9. Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council (WSSCC). 2008. A Guide to Investigating One of the Biggest Scandals of the Last 50 Years.
  10. Rajesh Shah of Blue Planet Run Foundation.
  11. World Health Organization. 2008. Safer Water, Better Health: Costs, benefits, and sustainability of interventions to protect and promote health.
  12. World Health Organization Fact Sheet Health in Water Resources Development.
  13. Diarhhoea: Why children are still dying and what can be done. UNICEF, WHO 2009
  14. United Nations World Water Development Report, "Water in a Changing World"
  15. DfiD [Department for International Development] Sanitation Reference Group. 2008.
  16. 2004, Wastewater Use in Irrigated Agriculture
  17. (sewer illustration) Boston Water and Sewer Commission

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