Skip directly to: content | left navigation | search
  1. NCEH ›
  2. Office of Global Health ›
  3. Signature Programs ›
  4. Water PLUS / Agua y MÁS

Water PLUS / Agua y MÁS

    Dr. Monteiro inspects turbidity levels at water treatment facility in Linden, Guyana.
    Dr. Monteiro inspects turbidity levels at water treatment
    facility in Linden, Guyana. (Jan. 2007 Richard Davis)

    Program Overview

    Access to safe water and sanitation is among the most important determinants of public health. An estimated 1.8 million people in the developing world die each year due to lack of access to improved water sources and sanitation. Another billion suffer illness. The benefits of assuring access to a safe water supply, sanitation and hygiene education include: the reduction in mortality and morbidity - 65% and 26%, respectively; poverty reduction; socio-economic development; and social equity. Improvements in water and sanitation are also cost-beneficial, returning US$5 to US$28 in developing regions for every dollar invested.

    Water PLUS/ Agua y MÁS is a community-based approach for assessing water, sanitation, and hygiene issues and implementing community-determined solutions. CDC works with partners to implement the World Health Organization’s Water Safety Plan methodology. A Water Safety Plan relies on environment and health sector collaboration to identify, assess, monitor, and manage risks inherent in a water delivery system from “catchment to consumer.” The key components include supply system assessment, effective operational monitoring, and management. CDC builds upon the Water Safety plan by empowering communities to assess, prioritize, and resolve their water and sanitation issues; helping them build the skills for maintaining and sustaining improved systems, and strengthening infrastructure necessary to support and monitor improvements.

    Objectives


    • Improve approaches to safe water, sanitation, and hygiene that empower communities and enhance effectiveness and sustainability.
    • Institutionalize capacity to assess, design, implement, manage, monitor and evaluate sustainable community-based systems for water, sanitation and hygiene promotion.
    • Create a strong infrastructure among epidemiological, laboratory, health and environmental public health sectors to support and monitor water and sanitation systems.
    • Enhance relationships among communities and government and private support institutions at the municipal, regional and national levels.

    Regional Focus

    Water PLUS/Agua y MÁS focuses on communities in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), where CDC has experience and strong partnerships. Approximately 60 million inhabitants of LAC lacked access to safe water and 136 million lacked sanitation services in 2002. In LAC countries with high adult and child mortality—Bolivia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Peru—an annual investment of US$ 1 in water and sanitation yields a tenfold benefit.

    Current Activities


    • PAHO/CDC/EPA Water Safety Plan Demonstration Project in Spanish Town, Jamaica began in January 2006.
    • CDC and Coca-Cola funded Water Safety Plan Pilot Project in Tarija, Bolivia, began in August 2006.
    • U.S. State Department-sponsored National Program of Action / Water Safety Plan in Linden, Guyana began in October 2006, in conjunction with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
    • Trinidad and El Alto, Bolivia are pilot sites for a World Bank-funded sanitation intervention which began in September 2006, in partnership with Emory University and Fundación Sumaj Huasi.
    • A multi-faceted water, sanitation, and hygiene intervention sponsored by the Inter-American Development Bank began in January 2007 in the border region between Bolivia, Peru, and Brazil.
    • A Joint, EPA, CDC, Coca-Cola pilot Water Safety Plan in Vicosa, Brazil with the Federal University of Vicosa and the Ministry of Health-Brazil was initiated in January, 2007.

    Partners

    Ministries of Health and Environment, WHO, PAHO, EPA, U.S. Department of State, The Coca-Cola Company, CARE, Emory University, NOAA, USGS, the Caribbean Environmental Health Institute (CEHI), the Andean Health Organization (AHO), the Community of Andean Nations (CAN), World Bank, IDB, and local NGO’s.

    Use of Funds


    • Water and sanitation toolkit development
    • Partnering and funding outreach
    • Training workshops on conducting water and sanitation assessments
    • Water and sanitation assessments and implementation development
    • Evaluation and improvement
    • Ongoing technical support

    Health Impact

    Currently, CDC, using Global Disease Detection (GDD) Innovative funds is piloting 4 Water Safety Plan projects that aim to demonstrate a health impact by assessing the vulnerability of a community’s water supply/system and measuring the potential and realized improvement in health of the consumer after implementation of the Water Safety Plan recommendations.

View the WaterPLUS/Agua y Mas Fact Sheet in PDF format [PDF, 208 KB]

top