Clean Water
According to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), each person in developing countries needs at least 5 gallons of water each day, for drinking, cooking, bathing and for laundry.
In developed countries people use on average, 50 - 150 gallons of water per day.
In the United Kingdom the average person uses 13 gallons of water a day flushing toilets and approximately another 26 gallons a day for other personal and household uses. The highest average water user in the world is the U.S. at 158 gallons per day, per person.
Water is life-sustaining. While we can live more than a month without food, we cannot live more than a few days without water.
Because of this literal relationship of water to life, water has stood figuratively as a symbol of life through out recorded history.
Access to clean water is a fundamental human need and, therefore, a basic human right. Contaminated water jeopardizes both the physical and social health of all people. It is an affront to human dignity.
Kofi Annan, Former United Nations Secretary-General