Water is at the heart of our lives and ecosystems for drinking, farming, and washing. Globally, we use more than 9 billion cubic meters of water every year. Today, nearly 2 billion people, or a quarter of the world’s population, live in countries that are continuously water-stressed, while nearly half the global population live in potentially water scarce areas at least one month per year. This number could exceed 5 billion by 2050. Women and children are the most vulnerable when it comes to water quality, sanitation and access issues because they are frequently in charge of water collection. Every day, women and girls spend over 200 million hours gathering water, while hundreds of millions of children do not have access to proper and sanitary hand washing facilities that contribute to the spread of deadly diseases.
In order to create a water-secure future with clean, accessible, and sustainable water sources we must increase monitoring and risk mitigation of waste-water, flooding and drought, promote nature-based water conservation solutions, and ensure multi-stakeholder participation in solution building. Multi-stakeholder approach should be at the heart of how we study and solve problems if we are to advance partnering for action, ensure data sharing, learning and innovation. On this World Water Day, we at I4DI are committed to working with stakeholders to use evidence to drive action – check out this video to learn more! Water is essential for human flourishing – let’s meet the challenge of water access for all.
WASH has been an I4DI focus area since our start, and here at I4DI we have been committed to improving water security through projects such as our Women and Water Global Development Alliance. Women and girls are most affected by these gaps as they are often responsible for household water collection and spend over 200 million hours gathering water everyday. On this World Water Day, we at I4DI are committed to working with stakeholders to use evidence to drive action on water security – check out this video to learn more! #worldwaterday2022 #waterislife
