There are an estimated 3.5 million deaths worldwide each year from water, sanitation, and hygiene-related causes. Of these, approximately 2.2 million are due to diarrheal diseases, with the vast majority of these deaths occurring in low- and middle-income countries.
While progress has been made in recent years in improving access to clean water and sanitation facilities, there is still much work to be done. In 2015, only 63 percent of the global population had access to safely managed drinking water services – meaning that they had access to a piped water supply that was protected from outside contamination – and just 68 percent had access to basic sanitation facilities. This leaves over 4 billion people without safe drinking water and over 5 billion people without basic sanitation facilities.
Lack of access to clean water and proper sanitation is not only a public health issue but also an economic one. It is estimated that the lack of adequate WASH (water, sanitation, and hygiene) services costs countries around $260 billion each year in lost productivity due to illness and death. And while most of these costs are borne by low- and middle-income countries, high-income countries also face significant costs associated with WASH – an estimated $39 billion per year in the United States alone.