Safe drinking water is essential to good health. But in resource-poor settings, water often comes from unsafe sources and carries deadly pathogens. Of the nearly two million deaths from diarrheal disease each year, many are due to an unsafe water supply.

PATH’s Safe Water Project is testing commercial market approaches for household water treatment and safe storage products in Andhra Pradesh, India, learning about bridging the gap in the distribution of products to developing-country poor. The project focuses on working with partners to build distribution channels, improve existing products to make them more appropriate for low-income settings, and learn about generating demand to sustain correct use and purchase decisions. Ultimately, the project will provide strategies and tools for scale-up, replication, and sustainability for a range of settings. Research on the water treatment market, products, and behaviors is also being conducted in Vietnam, Cambodia, Ghana, Tanzania, and Kenya to support these strategies and tools. More information is available on the PATH website.

UNICEF collaborates with partners, families, and communities in more than 90 countries to improve water supply and sanitation, promote safe hygiene practices, and give urgent relief in response to disrupted water supplies and waterborne diseases.

Key resources

Below are some key documents on handwashing, clean water, and sanitation. Please also visit our partners’ websites for more resources.

• Report: Combating Waterborne Disease at the Household Level (available on the World Health Organization [WHO] website).
• Effect of Washing Hands with Soap on Diarrhoea Risk in the Community: A Systematic Review (available on the Lancet Infectious Diseases website).
• The Handwashing Handbook: A Guide for Developing a Hygiene Promotion Program to Increase Handwashing with Soap (available on the World Bank website).
• Safe Water Briefs (available on the PATH website).
• Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene Interventions to Reduce Diarrhoea in Less Developed Countries: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis (available on the Lancet Infectious Diseases website).

Other helpful websites

• Rehydration Project
• UN Development Program Water Supply and Sanitation Resources
• UNICEF Water, Environment and Sanitation
• USAID Hygiene Improvement Project
• Water Advocates
• Water Partners International
• Water and Sanitation Program
• Water Supply & Sanitation Collaborative Council
• Watsan Web
• WHO International Year of Sanitation
• WHO Water Supply, Sanitation and Hygiene Development
• World Bank Water Supply & Sanitation

References

¹ United Nations Millennium Development Goals.

PATH/JVG Krishnamurthy.