Our Cause
"Water is a limited natural resource and a public good fundamental for life and health. The human right to water is indispensable for leading a life in human dignity. It is a prerequisite for the realization of other human rights."
United Nations Economic and Social Council, November 2002.
At A Drink for Tomorrow (ADFT), we believe that access to clean, safe drinking water is not a commodity but a fundamental human right. We also feel that providing the poor with clean water is an essential tool in the war against poverty. Lack of access to clean water has physical, social, and economic ramifications. Partners in Health, a non-profit dedicated to bringing healthcare to the world's poorest by providing a "preferential option to the poor", asserts that at any given time, almost half of all people living in developing countries are suffering from a health problem caused by lack of safe water and sanitation that undermines their ability to study or work.
Currently, half of the world's hospital beds are occupied by people suffering from a water-related disease. In fact, nearly five million people die every year from preventable, water-related diseases. Diarrhea, primarily a disease of dirty water, is the biggest killer of children under five in poor countries, resulting in nearly 4,000 preventable deaths each day, which translates into a staggering 1.8 million dead children per year. Annually, children miss more than 443 million school days because of water-related illnesses.
Globally, women spend over 200 million hours traveling to collect water each day. According to a new report released by the Pacific Institute, an independent, nonpartisan think-tank that studies issues at the intersection of development, environment, and security, over 76 million people will perish from water-related disease by 2020 unless urgent action is taken,. The report finds that water-related diseases could claim more lives than the global AIDS pandemic by 2020 unless major changes are made.
Although nearly 1.2 billion people suffer from a lack of access to clean water, a solution to this massive problem is not impossible. Major development organizations agree that water projects are one of the most effective ways of saving lives and one of the most cost-effective investments in disease prevention.
Potable water projects typically reduce diarrheal-related diseases by 30 to 50 percent, with even higher reductions during water-borne epidemics, such as cholera and typhoid.
Furthermore, the World Health Organization estimates that every $1 invested in water and sanitation yields between $3 to $34 in reduced medical costs and increased productivity.
Finally, the U.N. Development Program calculates that closing the gap between current trends and the Millennium Development Goal target of reducing by half the proportion of the world's people without access to safe water and basic sanitation would save more than one million children's lives over the next decade and bring total economic benefits of about $38 billion annually to the regions receiving clean water.
According to Water Charity, an NGO committed to providing the world's poor with access to clean water, "The technical solutions presently exist for the world to take immediate action to drastically improve the plight of people and communities that are without adequate water and sanitation.
The ability to impact on the problem of lack of safe water supply is basically about money. With adequate funding, the problem can be resolved." The Pacific Institute echoes this point, "According to many international water experts, hundreds of billions of dollars are needed to bring safe water to everyone who needs it.".
ADFT will mobilize various sectors to provide this critically important funding and channel it into this urgent cause but accompanies it with the promise that money allocated to the clean water crisis will have enormous returns in the health and development of the communities provided with clean water.
"That 1.2 billion people lack access to clean water is surely one of the greatest development failures of the modern era. That as many as 5 million people mainly children die every year from preventable, water-related disease is surely one of the great tragedies of our time."
- Pacific Institute
