The latest on our work and those supporting it
People, Places, and Puddles: Our Approach to Increasing Water Coverage
Let’s say you’re a school-aged child in sub-Saharan Africa (hypothetically). You don’t have piped water at home. The Water Project has just visited your community and installed a new water point, where someone comes regularly to test the water and ensure it’s safe to drink. Under the best circumstances, the water source never goes dry, […]
7 Unconventional Ways to Combat Water Scarcity
If more people practiced awareness regarding their household water usage, it would relieve pressure on local water resources, especially in water-stressed areas. But remembering to turn the faucet off while you brush your teeth won’t affect global policy. When you dig into the data on global water usage, you find that water is a political […]
Why would someone wash clothes or bathe in their own drinking water source?
This is another entry in a series where we answer questions we’ve received from curious donors, website visitors, and casual commenters. As we’ve said before, it can be difficult for those who have always had water piped into their homes to understand what it’s like not to have water. We haven’t needed to trek long […]
The Ripple Effects of Carrying Water Long Distances
Worldwide, 26% of people (a total of 2 billion out of the world’s approximate 7.8 billion) must leave their homes to get water for their families. To say this implies a simple daily journey from A to B and back again. But while this may be the case for some water fetchers, the trip is […]
Takeaways from the All Systems Connect International Symposium
In May, I represented The Water Project (TWP) in The Hague, Netherlands with a colleague, Adam Torrey, at the All Systems Connect International Symposium. This event brought together nearly 700 professionals, policymakers, and academics from across the globe with expertise in water, sanitation, and hygiene (WaSH); health; climate; economic development; and social justice. Throughout the […]
What Does Water Have to Do with Domestic Violence?
This is another entry in a series where we answer questions we’ve received from curious donors, website visitors, and casual commenters. As we’ve said before, it can be difficult for those of us who have always had water piped into our homes to understand what it’s like not to have water. We haven’t needed to trek long […]
5 Surprising Ways Sand Dams Reinvigorate Communities
Sand dams are an innovative, sustainable, and cost-effective technology used to improve water access in dry regions worldwide. A sand dam is a small dam constructed across a seasonal river or stream bed where water flows during the rainy season. The dam is built to capture and store water in the sand that accumulates behind […]
First UN water conference in half-century yields new promises, no binding actions
The UN convened world leaders to address the global water crisis for the first time in more than a half-century – the outcomes got mixed reviews.
How Spring Protection Works
Springs have been used by local communities as a source of water supply for many years. Community acceptance, low operating and maintenance costs, and ease of community management make springs quite effective for supplying rural communities with water. Springs occur where water from an underground aquifer flows out of the ground to the surface. It […]
Deep Dive on Drought: What is The Water Project Doing to Counteract Its Effects?
We think a lot about rain at The Water Project. Rain is a critical component in solving the global water crisis. It is also something we cannot control. So, we spend a lot of time monitoring and tracking rain in the places where we work. Too little rain can cause a borehole to run dry, […]