Institute for Water, Environment and Health

(UNU-INWEH)

• Risk and Resilience: Vulnerability Mapping
• Safe Water Provisioning Knowledgebase
• Local Linkages Between Water, Environment and Health in Rural Kenya
• Previous Initiatives
  

Water-Health Solutions Spotlight

Case studies on clean water provisioning in remote, rural or otherwise marginalized communities

Over 3 million people, mostly children, die each year from water-related health problems, while billions are made ill. Importantly, it is widely accepted now that no other single intervention is likely to reduce global poverty more than the provision of safe water and sanitation. Safe water provisioning in unserved areas is barely keeping pace with global population growth, so that meeting the MDG targets for water is now in doubt. Holistic ecosystem approach, encompassing physical, economic, socio-political and cultural factors is required to address the issue.

The UNU-INWEH's focus on the Water-Health Nexus is aimed at the following three broad areas of interest:

• Incorporating Ecosystems into the Health Equation – examines human wellbeing within the context of relationships within the biophysical environment and prevents problems by fostering sustainable, healthy ecosystems
  
• Incorporating the Hydro-Social System into the Health Equation – examines human health within the context of the system that prevails within a country and determines the flow of water through society, and focuses on water-related illness and diseases.
  
• Appropriate Provisioning – Approaches and technologies for engagement, ownership and empowerment that facilitate water provisioning.