WASH facts and figures

1.1 billion people in the world do not have access to safe water, roughly one-sixth of the world's population.
-- 2.4 billion people in the world do not have access to adequate sanitation, about two-fifths of the world's population.
-- 2.2 million people in developing countries, most of them children, die every year from diseases associated with lack of access to safe drinking water, inadequate sanitation and poor hygiene.
-- Some 6,000 children die every day from diseases associated with lack of access to safe drinking water, inadequate sanitation and poor hygiene - equivalent to 20 jumbo jets crashing every day.
-- At any one time it is estimated that half of the world's hospital beds are occupied by patients suffering from water-borne diseases.
-- 200 million people in the world are infected with schistosomiasis, of whom 20 million suffer severe consequences. The disease is still found in 74 countries of the world. Scientific studies show that a 77% reduction of incidence from the disease was achieved through well designed water and sanitation interventions.
-- The average distance that women in Africa and Asia walk to collect water is 6 km.
-- The weight of water that women in Africa and Asia carry on their heads is the equivalent of your airport luggage allowance (20kg).
-- The average person in the developing world used 10 litres of water a day.
-- The average person in the United Kingdom uses 135 litres of water every day.
-- One flush of your toilet uses as much water as the average person in the developing world uses for a whole day's washing, cleaning, cooking and drinking.
-- Comparative costs: In Europe $ 11 billion is spent each year on ice cream; in USA and Europe, $17 billion is spent on pet food; in Europe $ 105 billion is spent annually on alcoholic drinks, ten times the amount required to ensure water, sanitation and hygiene for all.
-- In the past 10 years diarrhoea has killed more children than all the people lost to armed conflict since World War II.
-- In China, India and Indonesia twice as many people are dying from diarrhoeal diseases as from HIV/ADS.
-- The population of the Kibeira slum in Nairobi, Kenya pay up to five times the price for a litre of water than the average American citizen.
-- An estimated 25% of people in developing country cities use water vendors purchasing their water at significantly higher prices than piped water.
-- Projections for 2025 indicate that the number of people living in water-stressed countries will increase to 3 billion - a six-fold increase. Today, 470 million people live in regions where severe shortages exist.
-- The simple act of washing hands with soap and water can reduce diarrhoeal disease by one-third.
-- Following the introduction of the Guatemalan Handwashing Initiative in 1998, there were 322,000 fewer cases of diarrhoea each year amongst the 1.5 million children under 5 nation-wide in the country's lowest income groups.
-- Waterbome diseases (the consequence of a combination of lack of clean water supply and inadequate sanitation) cost the Indian economy 73 million working days a year. And a cholera outbreak in Peru in the early 1990s cost the economy US $1 billion in lost tourism and agricultural exports in just 10 weeks.- A study by Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council