Commitment Completed: 20 Million People Reached!

As of the end of January, we have now fulfilled our commitment made in 2016 to reach 20 million people in communities with sustainable sources of clean water. Together, we have transformed the lives of 20,000,000 people! It’s a testimony to the faithfulness of our donors and partners and the incredible tenacious WASH staff (1,200 strong) who have delivered this impact. This phenomenal success has resulted in World Vision becoming the leading nongovernmental provider of clean water on the planet, reaching one new person with clean water every 10 seconds. The 20 million people goal was always intended as a stepping stone to hold ourselves accountable to the bigger goal of reaching everyone, everywhere we work between 2016-2030 – some 50 million people. Based on the success of the last 5 years, we are on track to achieve this vision.

There are differences in contexts and complexities between countries, but World Vision has been able to maintain an average investment of $50 for each person to provide sustainable water and sanitation and hygiene education. Therefore, this milestone has required an investment of about $1 billion over five years. Our next goal is to reach the half-way point towards reaching everyone, everywhere we work – 25 million people by 2023. Based on our new five-year business plan, we also are committing to reach a cumulative 35 million people with clean water between 2016-2025.

20 Millionth Person Reached with Clean Water

Loveness Phiri, age 29, from Zambia with her husband Steven and three children recently received clean water in their village thanks to World Vision and our donors. She is our representative 20 millionth person reached with clean water since 2016.  She’s grateful that the 4 am walks for dirty and contaminated water have stopped and she has already started a business selling food with the time saved from hauling water.  “Am now a business woman, thanks to World Vision; our lives will never be the same because of the borehole they have provided for us,” said Phiri. 

Breaking News!

Dave and Dana Dornsife have been recognized in the Chronicle of Philanthropy as among the top 30 mega donors because of their support of World Vision. We would not have been able to reach 20 million people with their generosity and that of our other donors. Thank you Dave and Dana for being leaders!

Final 2020 Results

Of course, 2020 was a year unlike any other. During FY20, we completed our water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) business plan for 2016-2020, which led to reaching 19.5 million people with sustainable sources of clean water and an additional 3.9 million people with water during emergency situations. In many countries, our work continued during the pandemic as essential services. Despite challenges caused by restricted travel and gatherings, we were able to exceed our aggressive FY20 target for providing clean water by reaching 3.4 million people with sustainable sources of clean water, 1.8 million people with water in emergency situations, and 2.7 million people with improved sanitation, surpassing our targets.

While still continuing our work to reach people with clean water and sanitation, we also deftly responded to the needs and challenges created by COVID-19. Everywhere we work, there was a greater emphasis on promoting hygiene, since it is one of the most effective ways to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Because of the investment of our donors in building a world-class organization of WASH staff members, we were well-equipped to reach millions of people with hygiene promotion and hand-washing facilities to help prevent the spread of the virus. This will have a lasting impact on preventing the spread of the coronavirus and other deadly infectious diseases for years to come.

Specifically, we reached an amazing 8.2 million people with hygiene promotion, provided hand-washing facilities in 4,789 schools, and nearly 1 million households gained access to handwashing. Because it is especially important to provide hand-washing facilities to protect frontline healthcare workers from the spread of infections, we stepped up our efforts to construct hand-washing facilities in healthcare sites. We also dramatically increased our efforts to provide emergency hygiene supplies, including soap and hand sanitizer.

We know from our effective response during the Ebola outbreak in West Africa that faith leaders can be especially useful in sharing messages with their congregations that prevent the spread of deadly infectious diseases. To address COVID-19, we intensified efforts and reached nearly four times our original target, engaging 21,138 faith leaders.

As part of our continuing effort to scale up our work to provide piped water systems closer to people’s homes, we completed a five-year commitment with Grundfos to reach 2 million people in Africa with solar-powered, mechanized water systems. We are pleased to share that we surpassed that target by bringing water to 2.4 million people. To maintain this momentum, we entered into a new four-year commitment with Grundfos to reach 4 million people in Africa with solar-powered, mechanized systems by the end of 2024.

In 2020, we made significant progress toward our plan to finish the job of reaching everyone, everywhere we work with clean water in the entire country of Rwanda by garnering the funding needed from U.S. donors ($30 million raised or committed). This has made Rwanda our second-best overall country of impact, providing 234,000 people with clean water in FY20. Based on this success, we are creating finish-the-job plans for Zambia, Ghana, and Honduras.

Some of our other key countries include Kenya which reached 99.4% of our five year target by reaching 894,835 over 5 years including 187,244 people in FY20; Ethiopia which reached 100% of our 5 year target by reaching 2,634,823 people including 330,713 people in FY20, and Zambia which reached 112% of our five year target by reaching 899,006 people including 231,830 people in FY20.

Here's a link to all of our FY20 results.

We are grateful for your support and hope you take satisfaction in the amazing impact that we’ve had together during the last five years. We look forward to our continued journey together to provide clean water to vulnerable families across the developing world.

USAID Grant: Honduras

World Vision has won a USAID grant of $4 million for our work in Honduras. One-half of this award will provide water, sanitation, and hygiene to families including building or repairing water systems serving 16,000 people. This award, along with the generous donations we’ve received following hurricanes ETA and IOTA, is a pivotal step to restoring all the water systems that were damaged from the hurricanes.

Water Warrior Video Call Recording

Join our celebration of reaching 20 million people with clean water with donors Dave and Dana Dornsife and Debbie Quesada. Hear a summary of FY20 results with our Pauline Okumu of World Vision International and learn about our partnership with the Water Institute at UNC from Dr. Aaron Salzberg.

You can listen to the recording here.

Prayer Requests

• Give praise to God for the miraculous accomplishment of reaching 20 million people with clean water in the name of Jesus.
  
  
• Help us to not take for granted our own ability to access safe and clean water and be mindful of the urgent need to provide it for others.
  
  
• Ask God for favor on our partnership with UNC and that it continues to help us learn how to be more efficient and effective with donor investments.