Impacts on Women
- Millions of women and children spend several hours a day collecting water from distant, often polluted sources.
- 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.
- Evidence shows that women are responsible for half of the world's food production (as opposed to cash crops) and in most developing countries, rural women produce between 60-80 percent of the food. Women also have an important role in establishing sustainable use of resources in small-scale fishing communities, and their knowledge is valuable for managing and protecting watersheds and wetlands.
Impacts on Children
- Every 15 seconds, a child dies from a water-related disease.
- Children in poor environments often carry 1,000 parasitic worms in their bodies at any time.
- 1.4 million children die as a result of diarrhea each year.
- 90% of all deaths caused by diarrheal diseases are children under 5 years of age, mostly in developing countries.
