Sanitation Matters for Sustainable Communities

“Adequate sanitation to protect health is considered a fundamental human right.”

Unfortunately, for roughly half the developing world, safe and reliable water is not accessible. The result is the daily tragedy of waterborne disease, which claims thousands of lives each day.

“Safe water and sanitation are vital to human health and are critical for the stability of nations around the globe,” said AWWA Executive Director Gary Zimmerman. “In North America, clean water is often taken for granted, but World Water Day creates an opportunity to think about the extraordinary value of our precious water supplies and advanced water treatment and delivery systems.

“World Water Day asks us all to become more aware of how our actions affect our water supplies, and encourages the development of a culture which recognizes the life-giving value of water,” Zimmerman added.” AWWA encourages all its members and water customers to support organizations like Water for People, which work to improve water sanitation and prevent the tragedy of waterborne disease across the globe.

More information on World Water Day 2008 can be found at www.worldwaterday.org

The international observance of World Water Day is an initiative that grew out of the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio de Janeiro.

More information on Water for People can be found at www.waterforpeople.org 

Water For People helps people in developing countries improve their quality of life by supporting the development of locally sustainable drinking water resources, sanitation facilities and health and hygiene education programs.

Our vision is a world where all people have access to safe drinking water and sanitation; a world where no one suffers or dies from a water- or sanitation-related disease.