The grim results of inadequate safe drinking water and sanitation (SDS) worldwide are staggering: over 3 million people, mostly children, die each year from water-related health problems, while billions are made ill from dysentery. 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. The provision of new services is barely keeping pace with global population growth, so that meeting the MDG targets for water is now in grave doubt. At the core of the SDS crisis is the lack of human, technological, infrastructural and institutional capacity for timely action. Although no reliable estimates exist, it is clear that hundreds of thousands of new professionals, managers and local practitioners will be needed at all levels to meet the water MDGs.

For UNU-INWEH, this programme focuses on SDS provisioning in the rural areas of developing countries. UNU-INWEH focuses on better understanding the challenges for rural areas. These are areas where knowledge of appropriate technologies and effective management practices is inadequate, coverage is fragmented and the attention given in national development strategies is inadequate at best. In particular need of attention are the tens of thousands of small, isolated rural communities, where the absence of both water and energy sustainability stymie development and imperil the health of citizens.