Expanding Opportunities for Small-Scale Water and Sanitation Projects
Navigating Peace Initiative: Water Working Group I

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More than one billion people—17 percent of the global population—lack access to clean freshwater. Even more lack sanitation: more than 2.6 billion people, or about 40 percent of the population. In sub-Saharan Africa alone, nearly half of the population is without safe water, while an even smaller percentage has sanitation coverage. As population increases and water is mismanaged and overexploited, problems with water quality and quantity will give rise to acute policy challenges—and potential security threats.

WWGI Members

Janice Beecher, Director of the Institute for Public Utilities, Michigan State University Gordon Binder, Senior Fellow, World Wildlife Fund and Aqua International Partners J. Carl Ganter, Managing Editor, MediaVia and Circle of Blue Karin M. Krchnak, Director of International Water Policy, The Nature Conservancy Melinda Moore, Senior Policy Analyst, RAND Corporation Scott Whiteford, Director, Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies, University of Arizona Charlotte Youngblood, former Program Assistant, Environmental Change and Security Program, Woodrow Wilson Center

In recent decades, many projects in the water and sanitation sectors have performed poorly, due to inefficient governments, operation and maintenance challenges, and problematic privatizations. While the international community has increasingly turned to small-scale and community-based projects, research and information on these methods are limited.

Navigating Peace’s Water Working Group I (WWG I)—funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York—examines alternatives to large-scale infrastructure projects in the water and sanitation sectors. The full text of WWG I's report Water Stories: Expanding Opportunities in Small-Scale Water and Sanitation Projects, which examines the success of small-scale, community-based water and sanitation efforts, is available here.

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Related Publications
“Water Stories” Multimedia Website
Finding the Source: The Linkages Between Population and Water

Navigating Peace Initiative: More Information
Conflict & Cooperation: Water Working Group II
United States & China: Water Working Group III
Advisory Group
Funder: The Carnegie Corporation of New York

Water Links
Global Water News
Water Glossary
Water Quote Search

Environmental Change and Security Program
Woodrow Wilson Center
One Woodrow Wilson Plaza
1300 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20004-3027
Email: ecsp@wilsoncenter.org
Tel: 202/691-4000