Water, Sanitation And Hygiene

Death rates from unsafe water sources give us an accurate comparison of differences in mortality impacts between countries and over time. In contrast to the share of deaths that we studied before, death rates are not influenced by how other causes or risk factors for death are changing.

This map shows the death rates from unsafe water sources worldwide. Death rates measure the number of deaths per 100,000 people in a given country or region.

What becomes clear is the significant differences in death rates between countries: rates are high in lower-income countries, particularly across Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia. Rates here are often greater than 50 deaths per 100,000 people.

Compare this with death rates across high-income countries: across Europe, rates are below 0.1 deaths per 100,000. That’s a greater than 1000-fold difference.

Therefore, unsafe water sources are limited primarily to low and lower-middle-income countries.

This relationship is clearly shown when we plot death rates versus income, as shown here. There is a strong negative relationship: death rates decline as countries get richer.
Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Target 6.1 is to: “achieve universal and equitable access to safe and affordable drinking water for all” by 2030.

Almost three-quarters of the world's population uses a safely managed water source. One in four people does not use a safe drinking water source.

The following chart breaks down drinking water use globally and across regions and income groups. In countries with the lowest incomes, less than one-third of the population uses safely managed water. Most live in Sub-Saharan Africa.

The world has made progress in recent years, but unfortunately, this has been very slow. In 2015 (at the start of the SDGs), around 70% of the global population had safe drinking water, and this has slowly increased over recent years.

If progress continues at these slow rates, we will not reach the target of universal, equitable access to safe and affordable drinking water by 2030.
The definition of an improved drinking water source is: “...those that have the potential to deliver safe water by nature of their design and construction, and include: piped water, boreholes or tubewells, protected dug wells, protected springs, rainwater, and packaged or delivered water.” Note that drinking water from an improved source does not ensure that the water is safe or adequate, as these characteristics are not tested at the time of the survey. However, improved drinking water technologies are more likely than unimproved ones to provide safe drinking water and prevent contact with human excreta.

The map shows the share of people worldwide who do not use improved water sources.