The United Nations observes World Water Day on March 22 every year.

The idea for this international day goes back to 1992, the year in which the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro took place. That same year, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution by which 22 March of each year was declared World Day for Water, to be observed starting in 1993.

Water is an essential building block of life. It is more than just essential to quench thirst or protect health. 

World Water Day focuses on the importance of freshwater and raises awareness of the 2.2 billion people living without access to safe water. It is about taking action to tackle the global water crisis. 

A core focus of World Water Day is to support the achievement of Sustainable Development Goal 6: Water and sanitation for all by 2030.

This year’s theme

This year’s theme is ‘Valuing Water’. 

It is about what water means to people, it’s true value and how we can better protect this vital resource. The value of water is about much more than its price – water has enormous and complex value for our households, culture, health, education, economics and the integrity of our natural environment. If we overlook any of these values, we risk mismanaging this finite, irreplaceable resource.

Today, water is under extreme threat from a growing population, increasing demands of agriculture and industry, and the worsening impacts of climate change.

As societies balance the demands on water resources, many people’s interests are not being taken into account.

Water, Sanitation and Hygiene

• The benefits of having access to an improved drinking water source can only be fully realised when there is also access to improved sanitation and adherence to good hygiene practices. 

• Beyond the immediate, obvious advantages of people being hydrated and healthier, access to water, sanitation and hygiene – known collectively as WASH – has profound wider socio-economic impacts, particularly for women and girls.

• The fact that WASH is the subject of dedicated targets within the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG 6) is testament to its fundamental role in public health and therefore in the future of sustainable development. Indeed, access to safe water and sanitation are human rights, as recognized in 2010 by the United Nations General Assembly. 

• For universal fulfilment of these rights to become reality, we will need the right systems: well-resourced, capable institutions delivering services and changing behaviour in resilient and appropriate ways.

• Today, 2.2 billion people lack access to safely managed drinking water services and 4.2 billion people lack safely managed sanitation services. 

• Unsafe hygiene practices are widespread, compounding the effects on people’s health. The impact on child mortality rates is devastating with more than 297,000 children under five who die annually from diarrhoeal diseases due to poor sanitation, poor hygiene, or unsafe drinking water.

• The availability of safe and sufficient water supplies is inextricably linked to how wastewater is managed. Increased amounts of untreated sewage, combined with agricultural runoff and industrial discharge, have degraded water quality and contaminated water resources around the world. 

• Globally, 80 per cent of wastewater flows back into the ecosystem without being treated or reused, contributing to a situation where around 1.8 billion people use a source of drinking water contaminated with faeces, putting them at risk of contracting cholera, dysentery, typhoid and polio. 

• Far from being something to discard or ignore, wastewater will play a major role in meeting the growing water demand in rapidly expanding cities, enhancing energy production and industrial development, and supporting sustainable agriculture.

• Across 61 countries, women and girls were responsible for carrying water in eight out of 10 households which equals 200 million hours, or 8.3 million days, or 22,800 years.

• It is estimated that achieving universal access to safe drinking water and sanitation in 140 low and middle-income countries would cost about $114 billion per year. 

• The year 2020 saw the rise of the COVID-19 pandemic, which hit the world’s most vulnerable people the hardest – many of them living in informal settlements and urban slums.   

• Globally, over three billion people and two out of five health care facilities lack adequate access to hand hygiene facilities. Inadequate access to hand hygiene facilities causes an increased risk for the spread of COVID-19 and other infectious diseases. 

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