Water fact sheet
Water: A global crisis
884 million people in the world have no access to
safe water. This is roughly one in eight of the world's
population.
2.6 billion people in the world do not have access to
adequate sanitation, this is almost two fifths of the
world's population.
1.4 million children die every year from diarrhoea
caused by unclean water and poor sanitation ‐ 4,000
child deaths a day or one child every 20 seconds.
This equates to 160 infant school classrooms lost
every single day to an entirely preventable public
health crisis.
8 out of 10 people without safe water live in rural
areas.
The average Australian uses 285 litres of water
every day for their drinking, washing and cooking.
97.5% of the earth's water is saltwater. If the world's
water fitted into a bucket, only one teaspoonful
would be drinkable.
Education and livelihoods
For every $1 invested in water and sanitation, $8 is
returned in increased productivity.
Households in rural Africa spend an average of 26%
of their time fetching water, and it is generally
women who are burdened with the task.
Sanitation and hygiene
7 out of 10 people without sanitation live in rural
areas.
Diarrhoea kills more children every year than AIDS,
malaria and measles combined.
The weight of water that women in Africa and Asia
carry on their heads is commonly 20kg.
The average person in the developing world uses 10
litres of water a day to drink, wash and cook.
Every year, around 60 million children in the
developing world are born into households without
access to sanitation.
Hand-washing with soap at critical times can
reduce the incidence of diarrhoea by up to 47%.
The integrated approach of providing water,
sanitation and hygiene reduces the number of deaths
caused by diarrhoeal diseases by an average of
65%.
A pit toilet built by
Caritas partner,
CADECOM, in Malawi
Upper primary/Secondary
HSIE/SOSE
Information
Last updated Jan 2012
Sources: UNHDR; OECD; UNDP; UNICEF.
Images: P Saunders, P Jeffrey, Caritas Australia