Blog: World Water Day – better water, better jobs?

‘Better water, better jobs’ is the UN theme for today’s World Water Day. It might not seem like the most obvious of links but the reality is that water, on so many levels, is inseparable from jobs and employment. Dan Jones, WaterAid’s Advocacy Coordinator, explains why WaterAid welcomes this year’s theme.

Counting the cost of water

Today WaterAid launches a new report, ‘Water: At What Cost?’ which provides a powerful snapshot of the state of the world’s water. It also shines a spotlight on the 650 million people who still do not have an improved source of drinking water. It’s hard to quantify, or to visualise, the impact this can have on women, men and children. The price paid by communities – in ill-health and lost productivity – is extremely high, and has a devastating impact, from the family to the national level.

Credit: WaterAid/Laura Summerton

For a poor person with no access to safe water at home, buying the World Health Organisation recommended minimum of 50 litres a day can be a huge drain on their salary. In Antananarivo, Madagascar, for example, a factory worker would have to spend 45% of their daily wage to get 50 litres of water from a tanker truck. Many people have no choice but to compromise their health and dignity by using much less water, or collecting it from unsafe sources.

Water for workplaces as well as communities 

Today WaterAid is also backing the launch of a new initiative WASH4Work that aims to amplify and align the good work being done by many in order to raise the profile of the issue of water and sanitation in the workplace and through supply chains.

This campaign is recognition that while momentum is building to ensure global access to water, sanitation and hygiene in homes, schools and, with leadership from WHO and UNICEF, healthcare facilities, relatively speaking, less attention has been given to the issue of access where people work.

And yet the impact of staff absenteeism, turnover and low morale related to lack of access to clean, safe water in workplaces cannot be underestimated.

If we are to achieve the Global Goal of water, sanitation and hygiene for all by 2030, or indeed the Global Goals on decent work and economic growth, on health for all, on quality education or gender equality, now is the time to act and recognise that better water for workers around the world is essential.

Dan Jones is advocacy coordinator in WaterAid’s campaigns team