Where does your water come from? Is it disease-free? Do you have indoor plumbing? Water is essential for life, yet more than one billion people--mostly in low- and middle-income countries--lack access to safe water for drinking, personal hygiene, and domestic use. In addition, close to 2 billion people do not have access to adequate sanitation facilities. Without water and sanitation, people cannot lead healthy, productive lives--their health suffers, their economy suffers, their environment suffers. Find out how communities, countries, the World Bank, and other international organizations are tackling this crucial issue.
Access to Safe Water Learning Module
Can a country have sustainable development when its people are chronically ill from contaminated water? Or when its women and children have to spend hours of each day collecting enough water just to survive? Explore this learning module from the Development Education Program to find out why access to safe water and sanitation is so important for quality of life and development. This site contains text, maps, charts, case studies, data, and exercises developed especially for use in classrooms.
Environment Matters
What are the environmental concerns related to water supply and sanitation? Check out these two articles from the Bank's environmental magazine --Cities and Health: Air and Water Pollution and Inter-Basin Water Transfers --for insight into some of the problems that can result from urbanization and trying to meet growing demands for water.
Explore these pages from World Development Indicators, 1999 to find data on water and sanitation for over 140 of the world's countries.
To view these pages you will need Adobe Acrobat Reader. If you do not have it, you may download it
here for free.
Safe Water
Explore this map that shows the access to safe water all over the world. To view other maps, select the one you are interested in, and then click on "Refresh Map". To use zoom in/out and other options at the top of the screen, select the feature you want to use and click anywhere on the map.
| Around the World |
 |
Africa
Latin America and the Caribbean
East Asia and the Pacific
South Asia
Europe and Central Asia
Middle East and Northern Africa
...and more.
| Digging Deeper |
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The UNDP-World Bank Water and Sanitation Program
Unsafe drinking water and inadequate sanitation are among the most serious problems facing the developing world today. This site, developed jointly by the World Bank and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), focuses on Rural Water Supply and Sanitation, Urban Environmental Sanitation, and Participation and Gender. It gives summaries and in-depth discussions of these issues along with project examples and resource links. Also see the 1995-96 Annual Report for regional and country-specific information.
Water Supply and Sanitation
This is the Bank's main Water and Sanitation web site. It focuses on critical issues of access to safe water, poverty alleviation, environmental sustainability, private sector-led growth, participatory development, and good governance.
Water Forum
The site provides links to databases, libraries, web
sites, and discussion groups to further international
dialogue on water resources management.
Orangi: Streets of Hope
"Orangi: Streets of Hope" is one of the environmental videos available from the Bank's Film and Video Unit. This film describes the actions taken by a low income neighborhood in Karachi, Pakistan to provide themselves with sanitation when it became clear that the government would not be able to assist them in the foreseeable future. Click here for ordering information.
Tackling the Issues
Water and Sanitation issues are closely associated with other issues that in their turn either improve or worsen access to water and sanitation. Explore issues like
Population,
Urbanization,
Pollution,
Sustainable Development,
Natural Resources,
as well as the others.
