International Year of Water 2003

The International Federation and water /sanitation - key facts

• Water and Sanitation are vital considerations for almost all Red Cross Red Crescent operations. The International Federation strives to enable communities to improve access to a safe and affordable water supply and sanitation by building volunteer and knowledge capacities.
  
  
• This goal is an essential component of the International Federation's Strategy 2010, specifically for health and care in the community.
  
  
• The Red Cross and Red Crescent strives to enable communities to improve access to a safe and affordable water supply and sanitation systems by building volunteer and knowledge capacities.
  
  
• Following the establishment of Federation Emergency Response Units (ERU) for seven years ago, the units have been deployed in response to 18 major disasters around the world. Five National Societies (Austrian, French, Swedish, Spanish and German) have Water and Sanitation ERU's with more than 400 trained staff and volunteers and are able to supply 500'000 beneficiaries with safe water and basic sanitation facilities.
  
  
• World-wide, the International Federation provides impoverished communities and victims of disasters with 20 million litres of water per day, benefiting approximately one million people over 30 programmes. Our network now spends about 50 million Swiss francs each year on water and sanitation.
  
  
• An average of 30 Water and Sanitation delegates and more than 500 staff are working on International Federation Water and Sanitation programmes per year.
  
  
• Hygiene promotion and educational programmes reach over 400'000 beneficiaries every year and are an integral part of our Water & Sanitation interventions.
  
  
  For more details on federation programmes, please visit the water and sanitation section of this web site.