On Track for 20 Million People with Clean Water by 2020

World Vision and our partners committed to reach 20 million people with clean water between 2016-2020 in order to demonstrate a track record of success towards our vision to reach everyone, everywhere we work by 2030 - some 50 million people. We are now 3.5 years into our 5 year commitment and have reached 13.8 million people with access to clean water, with 1.2 million people gaining access in the first half of FY19. We're on track towards a tremendous goal!

During this reporting period:  

- 9,069 water points were built

- 190,418 sanitation facilities were built

- 175,241 hand-washing facilities were built

- 1,783 water committees were formed

- 2,643 faith leaders participated in behavior change programming

During this six months, we reached nearly 800,000 people in rural communities with clean drinking water sources (104% of target) and reached more than 350,000 with water systems in municipal areas (108% of target). The municipal water system work was entirely in the Middle East to respond to the Syrian refugee crisis while 85% of the rural waters supplies were in sub-Saharan Africa. We also reached more than 400,000 people with emergency water supplies (426% of target) driven by responses to Cyclone Idai in southern Africa and a cholera outbreak in DR Congo. 

We reached more than one million people with household sanitation (120% of target) and more than 1.5 million with improved hygiene practices (109% of target). Nearly a quarter of a million school children were reached with a safe drinking water source at their schools as well as hand-washing facilities (more than 100% of target) while we were also above target for latrines in schools with 137,000 children benefiting. We were below target for the number of health care facilities reached with water, sanitation, and hygiene (60-90% of target) but are confident that we will be able to achieve our new commitment to reach 800 health care facilities with WASH by 2021 due to expected increased impact in the second half of the fiscal year.

Overall, this was an excellent six months of impact transforming more than a million lives and we're thankful to our donors and partners who are making this possible.  

Saving Lives with Clean Water

The July 2019 issue of the Journal of Global Health Reports contains an article co-authored by Dr. Emmanuel Opong of World Vision that estimates the number of lives saved and diarrhea cases averted through World Vision’s water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) interventions in Malawi, Mozambique and Zambia from 2010-2014.   The study used the Lives Saved Tool (LIST) developed by Johns Hopkins University and conservatively estimated that more than 800 lives were saved through WASH interventions benefiting approximately 1 million people in the 3 countries. The study also concluded that an enormous number of cases of diarrhea and severe diarrhea were averted, at more than 800,000 and 17,000 cases respectively. The authors recommended that even more deaths could be averted by encouraging household water connections and hand washing with soap.

This study shows the impact of World Vision’s WASH efforts in 3 countries as a result of the “For Every Child” Campaign which was focused in a total of 10 countries with an impact of reaching 5 million people with clean water over a 5 year period. Clearly, the impact of World Vision’s current efforts through the “Every Last One” Campaign which have reached 13.8 million people in the past 3.5 years and will reach 20 million people in a 5 year period will be even greater.

Prayer

• Give praise for being on track to reach 20 million people with clean water by 2020.
• Pray that our field teams are given the strength, wisdom, and endurance to continue their work in the toughest to reach places to provide millions with clean water and safe sanitation and hygiene. 
• Pray that we continue to have the financial resources to continue this work since, while we have come far, there are millions of people praying that we can help them by providing water in the name of Jesus.