Water is critical to life, health, and sustainable development. Yet, worldwide, more than a billion people do not have access to this basic resource. More than two billion do not have adequate sanitation. Every day, an estimated 25,000 people die from a lack of safe water and sanitation.

The lack of safe water affects one-sixth of the world’s population in many ways. It prevents children from attending school. It forces women and girls to spend many exhausting hours each day fetching and carrying heavy buckets of usually dirty water. Water is a critical need after disasters. A lack of water it contributes to the poverty cycle that prevents people in poor countries from attaining a better standard of living.