400 million children struggling to survive without safe water.

Children pay the highest price for an unhygienic World where over 1 billion people struggle without safe water and a staggering one in three lacks even a basic toilet.

Ordinary diarrhoea sickens more children under five than any other illness, killing 4,500 children every day. (the second highest single cause of child deaths)

Major social needs such as education are closely linked to safe water and hygiene. Waterborne diseases sap children’s energy and ability to learn.

Every day, a large number of children in developing countries are missing school because of diseases like diarrhoea and intestinal worms.

And without decent, private sanitation facilities at school, many girls find attendance impossible.

A child growing up in these conditions has little chance of escaping poverty. Human potential is drained out of poor communities by constant death and disease.

Chronic under-development is the inevitable result. It is estimated that days missed at work or school translate into approximately $63 billion in lost global productivity every year.

Different regions, different water challenges The children’s stories reflect the wide range of water challenges facing their native regions.

In Sub-Saharan Africa, decades of conflict, poor land management and the grip of this latest vicious drought in the southern half of the continent has left most children facing a desperate water shortage.

42% of the population has no access to safe water and only 36% have a toilet. This region is the only one lagging on both its water and sanitation development goals.

In South and East Asia sanitation is the big issue. Over half of all people without toilets live in India and China – 1.5 billion in total – creating an environment polluted with Human waste.

Water quality is another significant and growing threat to the region’s children.

Dangerous contaminants in the groundwater such as arsenic and fluoride are now putting the health of 50 million people at serious risk.

In Central and Eastern Europe, water reserves are shrinking in the wake of environmental change, and national water systems are struggling to cope.

With severe imbalances in access and a lack of regional co-operation to manage the existing water resources, the poorest children are being left far behind.

In Latin America, there are extreme inequalities in water and sanitation services both between and within countries.

Children in rural areas are far worse off for water and sanitation services than children in cities.

Across the region, poverty and social exclusion mean that indigenous and minority groups are disproportionately denied their rights to these services.