Stats & Info

884 million people lack access to safe water supplies; approximately one in eight people.
UNICEF/WHO. (Drinking water and sanitation research)

3.575 million people die each year from water-related disease.
World Health Organization

The water and sanitation crisis claims more lives through disease than any war claims through guns.
2006 United Nations Human Development Report

An American taking a five-minute shower uses more water than a typical person in a developing country slum uses in a whole day.
2006 United Nations Human Development Report

At any given time, half of the world’s hospital beds are occupied by patients suffering from diseases associated with lack of access to safe drinking water, inadequate sanitation and poor hygiene.
2006 United Nations Human Development Report

Almost one-tenth of the global disease burden could be prevented by improving water supply, sanitation, hygiene and management of water resources. Such improvements reduce child mortality and improve health and nutritional status in a sustainable way.
United Nations World Water Development Report

Almost two in every three people who need safe drinking water survive on less than $2 a day and one in three on less than $1 a day.
United Nations World Water Development Report

Investment in drinking-water and sanitation would result in 272 million more school attendance days a year. The value of deaths averted, based on discounted future earnings, would amount to US$ 3.6 billion a year.
DfiD [Department for International Development] Sanitation Reference Group