Poverty and Rural Water

Did you know that the depth of poverty is much worse for rural dwellers? In fact, 75% of poor people live in rural areas, and extreme poverty is more than twice as high in rural areas compared to urban areas in developing countries. The rural-urban income divide is not only large but increasing in most transforming economies.

Outside China, about 80% of the reduction in national poverty rates in the developing world has been due to reducing rural poverty. (With China, the figure is 56%.) The conclusion is pretty obvious: rural development is critical to achieving  a world without poverty.

Can there be rural development without safe, sufficient, and sustainable rural water supplies for all rural people? The Sharing Global Knowledge on Sustainable Rural Water Supply has an emphatic answer: safe and sustainable rural water supplies are integral to rural development. They save lives, free rural people’s time income-generating activities, and provide water for productive uses such as gardens, livestock, and small enterprises. 

To learn more, register for the global webinar series on rural water supply, or visit the webinar series web page.