WHO

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Name World Health Organization
Geographic Scope Global
Subject Focus/Expertise The World Health Organization is the United Nations specialized agency for health. WHO's objective is the attainment by all peoples of the highest possible level of health.
Contact Avenue Appia 20,
1211 Geneva 27,
Switzerland
Telephone: + 41 22 791 21 11
Fax: + 41 22 791 31 11
E-mail: [email protected]
URL: http://www.who.int/en/ | http://www.who.int/topics/water/en/


Contents

Description

The World Health Organization is the United Nations specialized agency for health. It was established on 7 April 1948. WHO's objective, as set out in its Constitution, is the attainment by all peoples of the highest possible level of health. Health is defined in WHO's Constitution as a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.

WHO is governed by 192 Member States through the World Health Assembly. The Health Assembly is composed of representatives from WHO's Member States. The main tasks of the World Health Assembly are to approve the WHO programme and the budget for the following biennium and to decide major policy questions.

WHO works on aspects of water, sanitation and hygiene where the health burden is high, where interventions could make a major difference and where the present state of knowledge is poor:


Water-specific WHO programmes

1. Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WSH)

Water, Sanitation and Health (WSH) supports the health sector in effectively addressing water and waste-related disease burden and engaging others in its reduction. Moreover, it assists non-health sectors in understanding and acting on the health impacts of their actions.

2. Household Water Treatment and Safe Storage (HWTS)

HWTS interventions can lead to dramatic improvements in drinking water quality and reductions in diarrhoeal disease, making an immediate difference to the lives of those who rely on water from polluted rivers, lakes and, in some cases, unsafe wells or piped water supplies. To accelerate health gains to those without reliable access to safe drinking water, WHO established this network to promote HWTS. The network format optimizes flexibility, participation and creativity to support coordinated action.

3. International Small Community Water Supply Network

The International Small Community Water Supply Network was formed to promote the achievement of substantive and sustainable improvements to the safety of small community water supplies, particularly in rural areas, as a contribution to the Millennium Development targets related to water and sanitation. Network members work together to identify common management and technical issues and problems in relation to community supplies, and find workable solutions in geographic and cultural context.

Mission/Mandate

The mission of WHO's Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WSH) programme is the reduction of water and waste-related disease and the optimization of the health benefits of sustainable water and waste management.

Information Resources/Tools/Materials

Databases

  • Water Law and Standards - This is a database of National Water Legislation, a joint project of the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
  • WHO Statistical Information System (WHOSIS) - an interactive database bringing together core health statistics for the 193 WHO Member States. It comprises more than 70 indicators, which can be accessed by way of a quick search, by major categories, or through user-defined tables. The data can be further filtered, tabulated, charted and downloaded.
  • The Health and Environment Lexicon - A multi-language glossary of health & environment terminology created in order to promote a common understanding of terms related to health and environment. At present it can be utilised in the six WHO official languages; Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian, and Spanish. However, it is consistently being expanded and improved.


Publications

  • Safer water, better health - the first-ever report depicting country-by-country estimates of the burden of disease due to water, sanitation and hygiene highlights how much disease could be prevented through increased access to safe water and better hygiene.
  • UN-Water Global Annual Assessment of Sanitation and Drinking Water (GLAAS) - The Global Annual Assessment of Sanitation and Drinking-Water (GLAAS) is a UN-Water pilot initiative led by the World Health Organization (WHO). The purpose of the GLAAS pilot report is to present the concept of a possible global, periodic, comprehensive reporting mechanism to inform policy-making in the sanitation and drinking-water sectors. The GLAAS pilot report does not draw conclusions on the sector status, but it is meant to stimulate discussion on how to improve reporting on the sanitation and drinking-water sectors.
  • Progress on Drinking Water and Sanitation: Special Focus on Sanitation (2008) - With 2008 being the International Year of Sanitation (IYS), JMP made sanitation a major focus in its 2008 update report. The report details global progress towards the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) target for drinking-water and sanitation, and analyses what these trends suggest for the remainder of the UN Decade "Water for Life" (2005 - 2015).
  • A Snapshot of sanitation in Africa (2008) - contains a new set of sanitation coverage estimates for Africa for the year 2006 based on preliminary JMP estimates.
  • Meeting the MDG drinking-water and sanitation target: the urban and rural challenge of the decade - Entering the International Decade for Action, Water for Life, 2005–2015, this report looks at the challenge of meeting the MDG target for drinking water and sanitation.
  • Water For Life: Making it happen - This report makes clear that achieving the target of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) for access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation will bring a payback worth many times the investment involved. It will also bring health, dignity and transformed lives to many millions of the world’s poorest people.The humanitarian case for action is blindingly apparent. The economic case is just as strong.
  • Guidelines for drinking water quality - WHO produces international norms on water quality and human health in the form of guidelines that are used as the basis for regulation and standard setting, in developing and developed countries world-wide.
  • Core questions on drinking-water and sanitation for household surveys - How many people lack access to drinking-water and sanitation? This question is usually answered through the outputs of household surveys and censuses conducted throughout the world. But wide variations in survey tools and methods, make comparison between different surveys problematic. To help overcome this problem, the WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme for Water Supply and Sanitation (JMP) has developed a set of harmonized survey questions (the 'Core Questions').


Click Here for all of WHO's publications relating to water, sanitation and health.

Work on the ground

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