IFRC

Water, sanitation and hygiene promotion

  • A young boy in Aceh Besar enjoying the piped water facility constructed by the Indonesian Red Cross (PMI). There is no doubt that clean, safe water can - both in the immediate aftermath and throughout the recovery phase of operations - save many, many lives. The Red Cross Red Crescent has decades of experience in providing water and sanitation infrastructure and expertise when disaster strikes.
  • The average distance that women in Africa and Asia need to walk to collect water is 6 km every day. Thanks to the work of Red Cross Red Crescent water and sanitation delegates, these women from the Darfur refugee camp in Treguine (Eastern Chad) have easy access to water.

The lack of access to safe water and sanitation facilities combined with poor hygiene awareness and practices is a major cause of death, disease and loss of dignity in most of the world’s poorer countries.

Over 1.1 billion people do not have access to clean water and more than 2.6 billion people do not have access to basic sanitation (according to the World Health Organization/Unicef Joint Monitoring Project MDG Targets). More than 2 million people, the majority children under 5, die every year due to a lack of improved water sources and basic sanitation.

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies’ (IFRC) water and sanitation policy works hard to combat these huge global challenges.

The problems caused by a lack of access to safe water and sanitation are made much worse during disasters and crises, and are increasingly influenced by climate change, rapid unplanned urbanisation, increasing epidemics and pandemics, population movement and conflict. Lack of safe water is the most common and preventable underlying cause of disease and death in the world today.

Water and sanitation policy

An integral part of the IFRC health and care strategy is its water and sanitation policy developed in 2003. This broadly defines the actions required to address a lack of access to safe water and sanitation.

We continue to support National Red Cross and Red Crescent Society volunteers, staff and delegates worldwide, who respond rapidly to disasters and crises with technical skill, training and equipment such as water, sanitation and hygiene promotion emergency response units (ERUs) and water and sanitation disaster response kits.

We also work on long-term development programming under the ten-year Global Water & Sanitation Initiative (GWSI 2005-2015).

Our work contributes long-term sustainable solutions towards the achievement of UN Millennium Development Goals.

During the last ten years:

  • over 6 million people have benefited from our disaster response activities

  • over 3 million people have benefited from our long-term programming

 

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) is the world's largest humanitarian organization, with 187 member National Societies. As part of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, our work is guided by seven fundamental principles; humanity, impartiality, neutrality, independence, voluntary service, unity and universality. About this site & copyright