Impacting lives

IRC is improving the lives of 3.6 million people in the countries where we work. Data is telling us our systems approach is succeeding. By 2030, in alliance with Water For People, we will directly impact 20 million people, contribute to improved services for 200 million and advocate for over 2 billion.

2.2M

people in our partner areas

650K

now have at least basic water services in our partner areas

391K

people now have at least basic sanitation in our partner areas

“We want to guarantee the sustainability of systems. We're implementing a training plan and technical assistance plan for all water boards to make sure they improve their administrative, operations and maintenance and life cycle costing skills.”
Sarahí Morales, Coordinator of the Intermunicipal Technical Unit of MAMCEPAZ

Our impact is wide-ranging

We catalyse change on the ground – in partner areas in our eight focus countries. We bring lessons learned to national capitals and global organisations, networks and decision-makers. We ensure that those lessons positively impact the strategies, investments and development of resilient systems in water, sanitation and hygiene systems.

Our committment

As part of our shared Destination 30 strategy with Water For People and Water for Good we have committed by 2030 to achieving:

Local impact: we will achieve universal services by strengthening local water, sanitation, and hygiene systems and investing in over 150 partner areas to improve services for 20 million people.
National impact: we will scale efforts at the national level to strengthen water and sanitation systems and improve services for more than 200 million people in at least 20 countries.
Global impact: we will challenge the status quo, influence leaders, and support change in the behaviors, relationships, and power dynamics that perpetuate inequity. We will influence and help bring transformational change in how services are provided for over 2 billion people who still lack safe water and sanitation across the globe.

Our approach works

Our approach works as our data is telling so. In 2020, we were able to report significant progress in our partner areas. At least 137,000 people now have enhanced access to services in six of our partner areas, while 171 schools and 55 health care facilities have upgraded water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) services. In all of these areas, we saw strong political commitment and local government leadership. This progress became visible when we launched our new, innovative public facing dashboard. It allows us to see how our work is progressing across each of our programmes, and measures the strength of the whole WASH system and the services it delivers in our partner areas.