Millennium goal: Ensure environmental sustainability
Target: Reduce by half the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation

What is safe drinking water?

Safe drinking water is one of the essentials of life and good health—without it people perish. More than 5.3 billion people now have access to clean water, an increase of more than 1.2 billion between 1990 and 2004.

But there are still over 1 billion people without access to safe drinking water, and 2.6 billion without access to sanitation. In Africa, women and girls can spend up to three hours a day fetching clean water, which for girls means time missed from school.

Diarrheal diseases —the result of unsafe drinking water and inadequate sanitation—account for nearly 2 million deaths a year among children under 5. After pneumonia, they are the second most common cause of child death worldwide.

For decades, Canadians have been working to improve the water supply and sanitation in the developing world. Canada is committed to helping people in developing countries find efficient, new ways to manage their water resources into the future.

© CIDA PHOTO: PEDRAM PIRNIA

Canadians making a difference Ryan Hreljac improves water quality in Africa Raegan Wheler makes water flow in Kenya More stories from the field

© CIDA PHOTO: NANCY DURRELL MCKENNA

© CIDA PHOTO: PETER BENNETT

Did you know? A child born in a developed country consumes 30 to 50 times as much water resources as a child in the developing world. Source: UNESCO Safe, clean water is key to good health. In 2004, only 54% of the world’s population had access to a secure piped water supply at home. Source: World Health Organization and UNICEF, Meeting the MDG Water and Sanitation Target: The Urban and Rural Challenge of the Decade, 2006. The percentage of people worldwide who have access to improved sanitation facilities has risen from 49 percent in 1990 to 59 percent in 2004. This means that more than 1.2 billion people gained access to these facilities in just 15 years. Source: World Health Organization and UNICEF, Meeting the MDG Water and Sanitation Target: The Urban and Rural Challenge of the Decade, 2006.

• Integrate sustainable development principles into country policies
• Significantly improve the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers by 2020

Mapping access to safe drinking water