Our Impact
47 million lives improved
Because knowledge changes lives.
Our Impact by the Numbers
(2025)
With
8.7
million
Together with
16
training partners
And
2,105
organizations
We impacted
47
million people
Knowledge Creates Impact Around the World
Together with our global network, more than 2,100 organizations across 92 countries reported taking action in 2025 to improve water, sanitation, and hygiene.
Demand for CAWST's training, technical expertise, and educational resources continues to grow.
Together, we're reaching more people every year by strengthening local capacity and sharing practical knowledge that creates lasting change.
Our training partners in 13 countries
Each orange dot on the map represents one of our training partners. Hover over the dots to find out more.
Countries where 2,105 organizations reported taking action
- Impact reported in 2025
- Impact not reported*
- Up to 1 million
- 1-2 million
- 2-3 million
- 3-4 million
- 4 million or more
- Angola
- Benin
- Burkina Faso
- Cameroon
- Central African Republic
- Chad
- Cote d'Ivoire
- Democratic Republic of the Congo
- Ethiopia
- Ghana
- Guinea
- Guinea-Bissau
- Kenya
- Liberia
-
- Empowerment Rehabilitation Services (ERS)
- Madagascar
- Malawi
- Mali
- Mozambique
- Niger
- Nigeria
- Rwanda
- Senegal
- Sierra Leone
- Somolia
- South Africa
- South Sudan
- Sudan
- Swaziland
- Tanzania
- Togo
- Tunisia
- Uganda
- Zambia
- Zimbabwe
- Afghanistan
- Bangladesh
- Bhutan
- Burundi
- Combodia
- Fiji
- India
- Indonesia
- Iraq
- Jordan
- Lebanon
- Mongolia
- Myanmar
- Nepal
- Pakistan
- Palestinian Territory
- Papua New Guinea
- Philippines
- Syria
- Thailand
- Timor-Leste
- Turkey
- Vanuatu
- Yemen
- Ukraine
- Argentina
- Bolivia
- Brazil
- Colombia
- Costa Rica
- Dominican Republic
- Ecuador
- El Salvador
- Guatemala
- Haiti
- Honduras
- Mexico
- Nicaragua
- Panama
- Peru
- Venezuela
- United States of America
* Survey results likely under-represent our global reach. People in almost country have accessed our resources, but our data includes only those who voluntarily reported their results.
Understanding Our Impact
Every year, the impact of CAWST and our global network continues to grow. As more organizations strengthen local capacity and share practical knowledge, together we help more people than ever before.
Impact from organizations supported by:
Training partners
CAWST
Tackling the water and sanitation challenge
Billions of people still lack access to safe drinking water, sanitation, and hygiene.
Lasting change requires more than infrastructure—it requires practical knowledge, local leadership, and the capacity to sustain solutions over time.
2.2 billion people lack access to safely managed drinking water.
3.5 billion people—nearly half the world—do not have access to safely managed sanitation.
2 billion people lack basic hygiene services, increasing the risk of disease and economic hardship.
To create lasting change, communities need the knowledge and skills to identify appropriate solutions, implement them successfully, and sustain them over time.
CAWST’s approach to this challenge is unique. We don’t build wells; we build a global community of action. Through training, consulting, and educational resources, CAWST helps local organizations strengthen their skills and knowledge, serve their communities, and train others to do the same.
That ripple effect helped improve water, sanitation, or hygiene for 47 million people in 2025 alone.
CAWST’s approach to this challenge is unique. We don’t build wells; we build a global community of action. Through training, consulting, and educational resources, CAWST helps local organizations strengthen their skills and knowledge, serve their communities, and train others to do the same.
That ripple effect helped improve water, sanitation, or hygiene for 47 million people in 2025 alone.
The capacity gap in the water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) sector
We work with others at all "levels" with the goal of closing the gap.
CAWST's Focus*
- Develop the capacity of practitioners to take action
- Provide education tools for field workers and end users
- Enable information and expertise exchange across all levels
- Identify barriers and ways to overcome them
Our role in Canada
Born and based in Calgary, CAWST operates on the Treaty 7 Territory; we honour and appreciate this special place in which we live and work. Our home is the meeting place of the Elbow and the Bow rivers, two powerful sources for life and wellbeing. Treaty 7 is the traditional territories of the Blackfoot Confederacy: Siksika, Kainai, and Piikani; the Tsuut'ina; the Îyâxe Nakoda Nations; and the Métis Nation, Region III.
All people living in Canada have a right to clean water and yet for many Indigenous communities this right is not realized. Getting safe water in a community can be complex and the right solution may be different for each community or even each household. This is true in every country that CAWST works. Discovering and assessing which option(s) are the right ones for a community is an important task to get sustainable water service(s).
CAWST specializes in non-networked, sometimes called point-of-use, non-piped or household level, water technologies and implementation approaches. These solutions can be interim or long-term depending on the context.
If you work or live in an Indigenous community looking for safe water solutions, CAWST would be happy to discuss the feasibility of household water treatment based on your context.
We welcome opportunities to share our knowledge and resources and build relationships with others living in Canada who are just as passionate as we are about safe water.
We are embarking on a project to adapt some of our key resources to better fit the Canadian context and we are looking forward to sharing them with you.
Reach out to discuss the safe drinking water crisis in Canada.