“SEC. 2. FINDINGS.“Congress makes the following findings:
“(1) Water-related diseases are a human tragedy, killing up to five million people annually, preventing millions of people from leading healthy lives, and undermining development efforts.
“(2) A child dies an average of every 15 seconds because of lack of access to safe water and adequate sanitation.
“(3) In the poorest countries in the world, one out of five children dies from a preventable, water-related disease.
“(4) Lack of access to safe drinking water, inadequate sanitation, and poor hygiene practices are directly responsible for the vast majority of diarrheal diseases which kill over two million children each year.
“(5) At any given time, half of all people in the developing world are suffering from one or more of the main diseases associated with inadequate provision of water supply and sanitation services.
“(6) Over 1.1 billion people, one in every six people in the world, lack access to safe drinking water.
“(7) Nearly 2.6 billion people, two in every five people in the world, lack access to basic sanitation services.
“(8) Half of all schools in the world do not have access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation.
“(9) Over the past 20 years, two billion people have gained access to safe drinking water and 600 million people have gained access to basic sanitation services.
“(10) Access to safe water and sanitation and improved hygiene are significant factors in controlling the spread of disease in the developing world and positively affecting worker productivity and economic development.
“(11) Increasing access to safe water and sanitation advances efforts toward other development objectives, such as fighting poverty and hunger, promoting primary education and gender equality, reducing child mortality, promoting environmental stability, improving the lives of slum dwellers, and strengthening national security.
“(12) Providing safe supplies of water and sanitation and hygiene improvements would save millions of lives by reducing the prevalence of water-borne diseases, water-based diseases, water-privation diseases, and water-related vector diseases.
“(13) Because women and girls in developing countries are often the carriers of water, lack of access to safe water and sanitation disproportionately affects women and limits women’s opportunities at education, livelihood, and financial independence.
“(14) Between 20 percent and 50 percent of existing water systems in developing countries are not operating or are operating poorly.
“(15) In developing world water delivery systems, an average of 50 percent of all water is lost before it gets to the end-user.
“(16) Every $1 invested in safe water and sanitation would yield an economic return of between $3 and $34, depending on the region.
“(17) Developing sustainable financing mechanisms, such as pooling mechanisms and revolving funds, is necessary for the long-term viability of improved water and sanitation services.
“(18) The annual level of investment needed to meet the water and sanitation needs of developing countries far exceeds the amount of Official Development Assistance (ODA) and spending by governments of developing countries, so facilitating and attracting greater public and private investment is essential.
“(19) Meeting the water and sanitation needs of the lowest-income developing countries will require an increase in the resources available as grants from donor countries.
“(20) The long-term sustainability of improved water and sanitation services can be advanced by promoting community level action and engagement with civil society.
“(21) Target 10 of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals is to reduce by half the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water by 2015.
“(22)
