Spreading the Water Wealth: Fast Facts on Water and Poverty
The Grim Statistics of Water
Annual child deaths due to dirty water and poor sanitation and hygiene: 2.2 million
Number of people without easy access to safe water: 1.1 billion (85% rural)
Number of people without easy access to decent sanitation: 2.4 billion (78% rural)
Number of undernourished people: 842 million (75% rural)
Number of people living on less than two dollars a day: 2.7 billion (75% rural)
Number of people displaced by dams: 40–80 million
Percent of world's food grown on rain–fed lands: 60–70%
The Good News: Comparative Costs of Solutions
Annual cost of bringing 100 million small farming families out of extreme poverty by 2015 with low–cost water technologies: $2 billion
As percentage of annual investment in large dams in developing countries the 1990s: <10%
Average cost of drinking water, per person, from community–built rainwater harvesting schemes in Alwar, India: $2
Estimated cost for drinking water, per person, from the notorious Sardar Sarovar dam project: $200
Cost of conventional irrigation in Africa: $5,000–$25,000 per hectare (ha)
Cost of irrigation through Sardar Sarovar dam and canals (India): $3,800/ha
Cost of treadle pumps and wells: $117/ha (India/Bangladesh); $233/ha (Africa)
Cost of Nepal drip irrigation kits: $250/ha
Energy and the Poor
Number of people without electricity in their homes: 1.6 billion (80% rural)
Number of people relying on traditional biomass fuels for cooking and heating: 2.4 billion
Number of people killed annually from health problems associated with open–fire cooking: 2 million
Percent of total energy consumption used for domestic cooking in sub–Saharan Africa: 60%
Cost of an improved cookstove in China (not subsidized): $10–12
Estimated number of such stoves distributed in China by 2000: 180 million
Number of rural families worldwide using clean biogas digesters to convert manure into cooking/heating gas: 16 million
Percent of South Africa's urban energy use that could be offset by solar water heating: 18%
Sources:
- World Resources 2005: The Wealth of the Poor – Managing Ecosystems to Fight Poverty; World Population Data Sheet 2005
- WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme
- FAO "Counting the hungry: latest estimates"
- www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/diseases/schisto/en/
- FAO & CIFOR (2005) Forests and floods
- World Commission on Dams (2000) Dams and Development
- REN21 Renewable Energy Policy Network (2005) "Energy for Development"
- Health, dignity, and development: what will it take?, UN Millennium Project Task Force on Water and Sanitation, 2005
- Frausto, K. (2000) "Developing Irrigation Options for Small Farmers," contributing paper to WCD Thematic Review of Irrigation Options
- McCully, P. (2002) "Water–Harvesting in India Transforms Lives," World Rivers Review, December
- InterAcademy Council (2004) Realizing the Promise and Potential of African Agriculture