Evidence Brief: Water and Poverty

Inadequate water service contributes to poor health outcomes and limits opportunities for education and income generation. Getting better water closer to households and improving maintenance and monitoring can help to improve water supply investments.

Key Points:

• Extreme poverty and lack of access to clean water supplies are closely linked.
• At the national level, the availability of fresh water is not correlated with the share of the population that has access to water services.
• Inadequate water supply service contributes to diarrheal disease, imposes large time and human energy costs particularly on women, and limits opportunities for education, income generation, and quality childcare.
• Considerable progress has been made in extending basic water services over the past 30 years. Many of these investments fail to improve health because they have little impact on either the quantity of water used or the quality of water at the point of consumption.
• In addition to getting better quality water closer to households, effective water supply investments need to ensure post-construction maintenance of installed infrastructure, and use valid and relevant indicators to evaluate results.