World Happiness Foundation Position on SDG 6: Water & Wellness for All

Introduction: Water, Sanitation and Sustainable Happiness

Clean water and adequate sanitation (UN Sustainable Development Goal 6) are the bedrock of a healthy, dignified life – water is life, and its absence is misery. Over the past few decades, we have seen important progress: between 2000 and 2022, over 2.1 billion people gained access to safely managed drinking water, and millions more now enjoy basic toilets. Yet the challenge remains vast and urgent. As of 2022, 2.2 billion people still lack safely managed drinking water and 3.5 billion lack safely managed sanitationsdgs.un.orgsdgs.un.org. This shortfall is not just a technical issue – it is a human crisis that strikes at the core of well-being and sustainable development. Unsafe water, poor sanitation and hygiene cause an estimated 1 million deaths each year, including about 500,000 deaths from diarrheal diseases alone. Every day, women and girls collectively spend 200 million hours fetching water, a colossal waste of potential that robs them of education and economic opportunity. The world is off-track to meet SDG 6 by 2030, with none of the Goal 6 targets currently on pace. This is unacceptable – water and sanitation are fundamental human rights, explicitly recognized by the UN General Assembly in 2010, and they are foundational to what the World Happiness Foundation (WHF) envisions as a happier, more abundant world.

The WHF views SDG 6 not merely as an infrastructure goal, but as a pillar of sustainable happiness and social justice. In our paradigm of “Happytalism,” a society’s success is measured by the well-being and happiness of all its members – and it is impossible to imagine well-being in a world where children die from dirty water, where mothers walk for hours to fill a bucket, or where lack of a toilet deprives someone of privacy and dignity. Access to clean water and sanitation uplifts every dimension of life: it improves health, expands education, empowers women, boosts livelihoods, and protects the environment. Conversely, water insecurity and poor sanitation perpetuate a vicious cycle of disease, poverty, and inequality. For these reasons, the World Happiness Foundation affirms that clean water and safe sanitation are non-negotiable essentials of a life worth living – a birthright of every person. Achieving SDG 6 is about more than pipes and pumps; it is about realizing a world where every individual can enjoy the basic freedom from fear and want that comes with a safe, hygienic environment. Water and sanitation for all is thus a cornerstone of what we call “Fundamental Peace” – a state in which everyone is free from basic insecurities and able to live with dignity, health, and joy. In this spirit, WHF approaches SDG 6 with an abundance mindset, determined to help create a future where _

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