Giving Compass' Take:

• Rich Thorsten outlines the impact of growing water inequality in a time when the world's most important resource is more critical than ever.

• What can we do to address the impact of water inequality? 

• Find funds to equitably support those feeling the effects of water inequality during the global pandemic.

Millions of people are left behind by the seemingly simple advice to wash their hands: 785 million, globally, who lack access to safe water. Without safe water at home, basic protections become a lot less basic. Many people must leave home for hours every day and gather in crowds to collect water. Many must buy it from vendors, at prices that have spiked during the emergency and balance the cost of handwashing against drinking water and food.

Water inequalities cut through the ongoing history of this pandemic and make it a disaster for people living in poverty. Those of us who can wash our hands do so, not only to protect ourselves, but to slow the pandemic for everyone. Acting right now as a social enterprise organization is not so different: it starts with practical concerns of protection and survival, but it doesn’t end there.

For Water.org, which works in 13 countries to help people finance and achieve their own water solutions, the operational problems were immediate. Each of those countries instituted its own lockdown, travel restrictions, and bans on gatherings. Water.org teams everywhere had to shift to remote work, shift assignments, and suspend office visits and field data collection.

Because water and sanitation are the most essential of essential services, there was never any possibility of putting our mission on hold. We were all too aware of the connections between water inequalities and COVID-19 vulnerabilities; we considered them every time we washed our hands. As with the constant scrubbing, we knew that we weren’t just seeking a return to operations for our own sake, but for millions of people who were in much more vulnerable positions.

Read the full article about water inequality during the pandemic by Rich Thorsten at Skoll.