Curiosity 36: Water worldwide

Continuing on from the previous post...

All this got me thinking about my privilege and the convenience of modern life in these United States, and of the many, many people worldwide who do not have indoor plumbing, never mind access, even if inconvenient, to safe water. The World Health Organization estimates that fully one in three people globally do not have safely managed drinking water (2.2 billion), sanitation services (4.2 billion), or basic handwashing facilities at home (3 billion). According to the World Bank, things are improving, with access to safe drinking water having increased from 62 percent in 2000 to 74 percent in 2020. Yet still 771 million people, mostly in Sub-Saharan Africa, do not have access to even basic drinking water services—meaning water from improved sources with a roundtrip collection time of less than 30 minutes including queuing.

And I thought hauling a bucket in from around the corner of the house was a pain....

Here is an NPR report on the issue, summarizing (in a journalistic manner) a United Nations World Water Development Report issued last March at the UN 2023 Water Conference, the first such gathering since 1977. 

All this also got me wondering what nonprofits are working to ease this situation worldwide—because somebody must be, mustn't they?

The NPR report identifies one, Isla Urbana, in Mexico, and discusses the notion of "water funds," local joint partnerships (the report cites such funds in Nairobi, Kenya, and Monterrey, Mexico, but this is apparently a fairly common approach) aimed at coordinating various water needs. 

And I found a list of "15 Nonprofit Organizations That Make Clean Water a Reality," of which a few are:

Generosity.org – which has completed over 800 water wells in 20 countries
Pure Water for the World – which has partnered with over 750 communities in Haiti and Central America since 1999
Water for Good – working in the Central African Republic: in 2022 alone they completed 59 new water points and serviced 1,121 existing ones
Splash – working with orphanages in China, and schools in Nepal, India, and Ethiopia; as their web page puts it, "Today we served 1,067,103 kids"
Safe Water Network – building affordable, locally owned water systems in Ghana and India

After my travails this week (and still ongoing), I'm thinking I'll make a donation to one or a few of these groups. Safe, accessible drinking water is nothing to take for granted.