Clean Water — High Atlas Foundation

Clean Water

Multiple Benefits

We believe that every person should have access to clean drinking water. By accessing new water sources and building water containment and delivery systems, we’re able to immediately improve infant mortality rates, increase girls’ participation in education, and expand agricultural production in areas most heavily affected by drought.

Our water projects are designed to uniquely fit each community’s needs. We collaborate with local teams to create solutions using local building practices, workers, and materials, and we transfer necessary technical skills for water-system maintenance. We are committed to innovative, sustainable action toward SDG 6.

Rebuilding Water Infrastructure

Earthquake Recovery

Program Focus Areas

Health

When communities have access to clean water, it significantly impacts health and wellbeing. According to a 2022 report by the WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme for Water Supply, Sanitation and Hygiene, only 62.17% of rural households in Morocco have access to safely managed drinking water; 45.86% have access to safely managed sanitation; and 64.70% have access to materials for basic hygiene.

By providing access to clean water sources for drinking, sanitation, and hygiene, we invest in prevention. Water borne illnesses are the leading cause of disease, and water infrastructure exponentially decreases infant and child mortality rates, general illness, infection rates, and other critical metrics for public health.

Agriculture and Livelihood

The Moroccan agricultural sector is the highest consumer of water resources, far exceeding household use. Ongoing drought, poor landscape management adaptation, soil degradation, and low rainfall all contribute to the increased need for well-designed irrigation in Moroccan agricultural systems, particularly in mountainous regions.

In many cases, when villages lack water infrastructure for irrigation, agricultural production decreases significantly or totally. This is a pronounced factor in urban migration, rural poverty, and land loss.

Irrigation ensures food and income security across farming households and communities. Ideally, improved irrigation systems also provide a pathway for using traditional methods of agriculture to regenerate degraded land, improve poor soils, and expand production.

Education and Women’s Health

Our adaptive management, supported by gathering and sharing data to enable group decision-making, directly enhances sustainable water use.

Access to bathrooms with running water is a significant factor in girls’ attendance in middle and high school. When bathrooms are built and hygiene options in public spaces are expanded, girls’ education rates increase in rural areas.

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Measurable Progress

Discover the benefits of our Clean Water projects.

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Success Stories

Our projects have benefitted people, families, and communities. Read some of their stories.

Empowering Women Through Cooperatives and Psychosocial Support: A Path to Sustainable Development

Some may assume that after a year of psychosocial empowerment training, the need for such workshops diminishes. However, our experience as facilitators working in a rural part of Morocco tells a different story.

Intercultural Solidarity Achieving Agricultural Opportunity in Morocco

A talk by Yossef Ben-Meir, President of the High Atlas Foundation in Morocco, at the Integrated Management of Cultural Tourism Conference on 11 June 2024 hosted by Egypt’s Ministry of Tourism and Antiques and the United States Agency for International Development.

Looking Forward… Remembering the September 8 Earthquake in Morocco

As the one-year anniversary of the September 8th earthquake nears, the High Atlas Foundation (HAF) alongside community partners will come together to honor the painful losses, the healing, and the collective rebuilding with one and all here in Morocco, and around the world.

Resources

Get more in-depth information about our Clean Water program.

Article

Overcoming Severe Water Scarcity: A Moroccan Vision

The six consecutive years of drought in Morocco have been excruciating. The impact on the price of basic food items, such as meat and olive oil, has been striking.

Whats App Image 2022 01 05 at 11 56 41 AM

Article

Drinking Water

Clean drinking water is a fundamental resource in allowing a civilization’s continued function, health, and prosperity, but is often taken for granted. The U.N. considers universal access to clean water to be a basic human right (Koshland) and central to human survival.

Article

World Water Day

HAF celebrates World Water Day, a day which brings people from all over the world together to contribute to the betterment and development of societies. We are honored to have had the opportunity to distribute environmentally friendly water bottles to 180 schoolchildren in the Tisfane commune.