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See Where Access to Clean Water Is
Getting Better—and Worse
Nearly 2.6 billion people have gained access to clean drinking water in the
last 25 years. That still leaves about 663 million without sanitary water.
In 1990, as part of the Millennium Development Goals, the UN set a target to halve the proportion of people without
access to safe drinking water. The world hit this goal in 2010, and as of 2015, some 90 percent of the world’s people
now have access to “improved” water—water from sources such as pipes or wells that are protected from
contamination, primarily fecal matter.
Percentage of population without access to improved water
SELECT A WORLD REGION
1990
1995
2000
2005
2010
2015
Total population without access to improved water
50 million 500 million 5 billion
Rural
Urban
Total
*Countries with 100 percent access to improved water not shown
UN Millennium Development Goals Regions and Countries