The Water Crisis
The global water crisis doesn’t often make the headlines. But the truth is, it claims more lives per year than war or natural disasters.
Nearly a billion people — that’s one out of seven people in our world today – lack access to clean, safe water. They walk an average of 3 miles each day to fetch water. Too often, the water they find is not safe to drink. Unclean water causes millions of people, especially young children, to die from water-related illnesses each year.
Consider this!
- Combined, unclean water and poor sanitation are the world’s second largest killer of children.
- Water-related illnesses result in a loss of 272 million days of school attendance for children, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.
- Millions of women spend several hours a day collecting water.
- Close to half of all people in developing countries are suffering at any given time from a health problem caused by dirty water or unsanitary conditions.
Source: United Nations Development Report 
2006