According to The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), in 2002, 42% of households had no toilets, and 1 in 6 people had no access to safe water.

About 4,500 children die each day from unsafe water and lack of basic sanitation facilities. Countless others suffer from poor health, diminished productivity, and missed opportunities for education.

Over 90% of deaths from diarrhoeal diseases due to unsafe water and sanitation in the developing world occur in children below 5 years old.

A child born in Europe or the United States is 520 times less likely to die from diarrhoeal disease than an infant in sub-Saharan Africa, where only 36% of the population can access hygienic sanitation.

In 2002, only 37% of rural inhabitants had access to basic toilets, as compared to 81% of urban dwellers. The disparities were greatest in Latin America and the Caribbean, with a difference of 40 percentage points between rural and urban populations.

On average, women and girls in developing countries walk 6 kilometres a day, carrying 20 litres of water, greatly reducing the time they have for other productive work or for school.

Improving household drinking water can reduce diarrhoea episodes by as much as 39%; on average, improvements to household sanitation facilities can reduce sickness from diarrhoea by almost a third. Almost half of the nearly 2 million deaths from diarrhoea each year could be prevented through an understanding of basic hygiene.

Meeting the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) targets related to water and sanitation would cost approximately an additional US$11.3 billion each year. A cost-benefit analysis undertaken by the World Health Organization (WHO) found that every US$1 invested in achieving the MDG targets on water and sanitation would yield returns between US$3 and US$34, depending on the region.