Unsafe water kills more people than all forms of violence, including war

I read a lot of shocking information every day but I can’t remember when a statistic surprised me as much as this one:

More people die from unsafe water than from all forms of violence, including war.

That statement is shocking, but the actual numbers are truly overwhelming. More than 3.5 million people die each year from preventable water-related diseases such as diarrhea, typhoid, cholera, and dysentery.

And this is the worst: That total includes about 4,000 children under the age of five who die every day.

Every day.

That means that every two months, the loss of young children alone equals the total death toll from the earthquake in Haiti.

I don’t know about you, but I had no idea that a crisis this enormous existed.

This morning I happened across an article about World Water Day, which came and went on March 22 without much fanfare. (Yet, I’m sure if Tiger were thirsty one morning, we would have heard about it in painstaking detail.)

Every year for 17 years the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development has sponsored this awareness day to draw attention to what amounts to a permanent international emergency.

The article had no information about how to help, but after searching a bit I found an aid organization called “charity: water.”

According to the website, charitywater.org, 100 percent of donations directly fund freshwater projects in developing nations. This is made possible by private donors who take care of all administrative costs. And if you like, you can direct a donation specifically to Haitian relief efforts. Needless to say, the fresh water situation there is dire.

So…a no-brainer? I guess that would be each individual’s call. But the website calculates that just $20 provides one person with safe drinking water for 20 years.

That’s a rock solid return on investment.

Source:
“Development: Bad Water More Deadly Than War” Thalif Deen, IPS-Inter Press Service, 3/18/10, ipsnews.net