For about 40 per cent of people living in Sub-Saharan Africa (around 313 million people in all), safe, clean water is not accessible (The Last Well 2019). Instead, they must rely on unsafe water which causes the spread of waterborne diseases including diarrhea, typhoid, malaria, cholera, typhus, dysentery, and trachoma (which can lead to blindness) (WHO 2000; AQUARISTA 2010; WHO 2019a). Having access to only unclean water means that young people and their families cannot bathe, wash their clothes or clean their houses properly. Moreover, children in this region are often responsible for collecting water for their families, which reduces their time at school (Graham, Hirai and Kim 2016).
To obtain water, this young Tanzanian is digging a hole in a dry, polluted riverbed Credit: Tajiel Urioh 2014.