Few things are more valuable than time.
Without a home water tap, Manjula had no choice but to carry a 20-30 pound water container back-and-forth each day to a community water tank about a kilometer from her home.
Water.org discovered that something keeping moms like Manjula from providing safe water for their families was a lack of access to the financing needed to construct a water tap.
This insight led us to create WaterCredit, enabling the world’s poor with access to small, affordable loans.
It’s smart, simple and sustainable.
More importantly, it helps the people we serve solve their immediate need, and continues to enrich their lives long after the original loan has been repaid.
For Manjula, the loan allowed her to build a home water tap.
Now the time she used to spend collecting water each day can be spent with her two boys.
And with more time and energy to invest in caring for the ‘kakada’ flowers she sells, Manjula can earn 2,000 Rupees a month – enough to repay her loan.
Give to Water.org and help turn hours of labor into a labor of love.

For a mother of four, access to a water connection would mean so much more than a safe drink – it would help her earn more money and improve her family’s home. Together, Janki and her husband make just enough money to send their four children to school and make a few…

Elma’s courage gave her the strength to choose smiles over tears, to choose love over pain, and to champion safe water for her family, even when the battle seemed impossible. Elma is courageous. You see, Elma and her husband are poor, and have never been able to break free from the cycle of poverty. Despite their circumstance, Elma chose to do her best at making a home for her family in a dirt-floor hut in rural Philippines. Made of bamboo and tarps, the dwelling never lacked love but did lack safe water and a toilet. Elma was unsure how she and her husband could ever afford these things for their home, but she knew having a tap and a bathroom would make life better for their children. A thirty minute trek from their village, Elma’s children walk to school every day. But before this they used to…

The village where Angelina lives with her new husband did not have access to water until recently when her municipality built water lines throughout the community. While the infrastructure was put in place, it was up to individual villagers to pay for a connection. Water.org created WaterCredit so couples like Angelina and her…

Life is so much better.
Elenita spends her days at home sewing bags and aprons for a living.
This was not always the case.
Elenita’s home gracefully sits on a quaint street in a peri-urban neighborhood.
Potted herbs and fruit trees surround her humble abode where Elenita and her husband raise their boys.
Some might never believe a family like Elenita’s could lack access to safe water and a toilet, but the reality is until recently, they did.
Further, many households cannot connect to water systems due to the high, up-front connection costs.
Because the need for water and sanitation is so high in the Philippines, Water.org conducted an assessment that demonstrated significant interest by lending institutions in what we call WaterCredit.
WaterCredit is the first program to put microfinance tools to work in the water, sanitation and hygiene sector.
I don’t have to wake early to collect water, and we can even afford more because I am able to do more sewing now.” Elenita’s story proves WaterCredit will not only help end the water crisis, but it will also transform lives giving women hope, children health and communities a future.

Most people agree that water is an extremely valuable resource—for farmers who depend on it to grow crops, for factories that need it to cool machines and spin turbines and, of course for life itself. But unlike most other valuable resources, it’s hard to place a price on water. The very fact that water is so important to people, economies, and the environment means that it is tough to even agree on a common way of valuing it. No less an economic mind than Adam Smith was stumped by this challenge. As he famously observed, “Nothing is more useful than water: but it will purchase scarcely anything. A diamond, on the contrary, has scarcely any use-value; but a very great quantity of other goods may frequently be had in exchange for it.” The problem of valuing water is far from academic. Societies around the globe are increasingly facing the task of difficult tradeoffs between different uses of water. While in most countries the majority of human water use goes to growing crops, cities and ecosystems are getting thirstier as a result of growing populations, economic development, and climate change. Water quality, too, is deteriorating in many areas because of pollution, and far too many people still lack access to safe and dependable sources of clean water. Without a…

2016 has become the year for water. From the World Economic Forum, COP22, to the Budapest Water Summit, water has been widely acknowledged as a key to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, and essential to the climate change solution. Here are the defining moments of 2016 that put water security and sustainability on the global agenda like never before: January – At the World Economic Forum in Davos in January 2016, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim announced their intentions to form a High-Level Panel on Water to provide the leadership required to champion a comprehensive, inclusive and collaborative way of developing and managing water resources, and improving water and sanitation related services. Ban Ki-moon gathers heads of state for political response to water scarcity https://t.co/YWE5lrgoCd #wef2016 — Development Pros (@GuardianGDP) January 25, 2016 February – A new study found that the total cost of providing water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) services to meet the SDG water and sanitation targets is estimated at around $114 billion per year – three times the current investment levels. In addition to money, the study says strong institutions, accountability, and mechanisms that turn investment into effective services for people who need it, are also critical. — World Bank Water (@WorldBankWater) February 12, 2016 March – The Government of India and the World Bank signed a US$1.5 billion loan agreement for the Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) Support Operation Project to support the Government of India in its efforts to ensure that all citizens in the rural areas have access to improved sanitation, with a focus on changing behavior and eliminating the practice of open defecation by 2019. April – The UN Secretary-General and the World Bank Group President appointed members of the High-level Panel on Water….

The journey of our water from source to tap is long, and not one we think much about. For most of us, our water starts high in the mountains, hundreds of miles away. From there, water flows across natural and working lands until a portion is channeled to water pipes that move water to our faucets, to farms, and to various types of businesses. Most often we think of those pipes as being our main water infrastructure, but upstream lands play a key role in capturing, storing and moving our water. By conserving these lands, we can better protect our water and generate additional benefits for people and nature. Today, approximately 40 percent of the land in urban source watersheds of the world’s largest cities show high to moderate levels of degradation. This degradation impacts the present and future quality and reliability of water flows. However, by investing in nature, we can reduce these impacts. A new report released by The Nature Conservancy, Beyond the Source: The environmental, economic and community benefits of source water protection, shows that forest protection, reforestation, and the use of cover crops can help four out of five of the 4,000…

United Nations investigators have accused Syria’s air force of deliberately bombing water facilities in December on the outskirts of Damascus, a war crime that cut off water for 5.5 million people in and around the capital.
The UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria on Tuesday said it had found no evidence of deliberate contamination of the water supply or demolition by armed groups, as the Syrian government maintained at the time.
"While the presence of armed group fighters at (the) spring constituted a military target, the extensive damage inflicted to the spring had a devastating impact on more than five million civilians in both government and opposition controlled areas who were deprived of regular access to potable water for over one month," the commission’s report, which based its conclusions on interviews with residents and satellite imagery, as well as publicly available information, said.
Syrian forces block aid to eastern Ghouta "The attack amounts to the war crime of attacking objects indispensable for the survival of the civilian population, and further violated the principle of proportionality in attacks."
On January 8, civilians were wounded in Baseemeh village near Damascus when pro-government forces used chlorine munitions.
In January and February, the UNáinvestigators documented four additional chlorine attacks in the eastern Ghouta area, which were aimed at frontline fighting positions.
There was no evidence of Russian involvement in chlorine attacks, the report said.
Osama Abu Zaid, a spokesman for the rebels, said they had taken a final decision not to go to the talks as a result of Russia’s failure to end what the opposition says are widespread violations of a Turkish-Russian brokered ceasefire last December.
For its part, the Syrian government blamed Turkey for opposition forces boycotting the Astana meeting.
"Turkey should bear the responsibility for the failure of the opposition to attend Astana 3," Syrian government representative Bashar Jaafari said in comments carried by state news agency SANA.

Union Leader Correspondent BEDFORD — Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics is considering extending public water to at least 64 homes with contaminated wells in Bedford, but town officials are hoping that even more residences will be included in the plan.
“The town absolutely, and I believe the Department of Environmental Services, feel the same way that people on bottled water need to be on municipal water in 2017,” said Town Manager Rick Sawyer.
Although Bedford officials have not received anything in writing from Saint-Gobain, they have been notified by DES that Saint-Gobain has requested a design proposal from Pennichuck Corp. to provide public water to 64 properties.
Sawyer said town officials previously requested that Saint-Gobain consider providing a public water extension to 288 properties in Bedford — not just the original 64 homes where perfluorooctanoic acid was discovered in private wells last year.
“That is part of our request — that Saint-Gobain work toward providing water to the entire area, and at least do the design solution if at all possible,” said Sawyer.
He is still hopeful that Saint-Gobain, which owns a Merrimack plant that is the likely source of the PFOA contamination, will still consider providing public water to the nearly 300 properties.
Elevated levels of private well water contamination were detected at houses on Hemlock Road, Green Meadow Lane, Back River Road, Smith Road and other streets.
“We are hoping to get more definitive announcements in the short term.” Martin said that although Saint-Gobain has requested an estimate from Pennichuck Corp. on design work for about 64 homes in Bedford, that doesn’t mean that discussions aren’t taking place to provide more Bedford properties with municipal water.
Work is ongoing to address water problems in Litchfield and Merrimack as well.
Free blood testing is still being offered to residents who live near the Saint-Gobain facility who have private wells with PFOA contamination above 70 parts per trillion.