Water is a fundamental human need and a driver for sustainable growth, yet Water scarcity currently affects about half of the world’s population. While 961 million people gained access to safely managed drinking water services since 2015, 2.1 billion people still lacked safely managed drinking water, 287 million had limited services, and 106 million collected water directly from surface water sources such as rivers and lakes.

Despite there being sufficient fresh water on our planet, millions of people who reside in tough and dry-land conditions are forced to live without it. The majority of those people live in isolated rural areas and spend hours walking to collect and transport water for their families every day. To make matters worse, that water is often unclean and contaminated, leaving people sick with waterborne diseases such as diarrhea, cholera and typhoid.

Not only does walking long distances while carrying 20 liters of water cause severe health issues, but it also keeps children out of school and wastes time that families could be using to earn an income.

Millions of vulnerable families around the world do not drink, cook, or bathe with clean water — a basic natural resource that we too often take for granted.