Access to water is essential for development. It improves health and school attendance and creates economic opportunity, yet an estimated 400 million people in Africa lack this basic amenity. In response to a UN challenge to companies to 'adopt a Millennium Development Goal (MDG)', three years ago our businesses in Africa committed to set aside half of their community investment budget - itself 1% of operating profit - to provide one million people with access to water every year until 2015.
The Diageo 1 Million Challenge will make a significant contribution to MDG 7, which is to halve the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water by the same date. In Nigeria alone, we completed seven projects during the financial year 2009. Each project amounted to a mini water works comprising a deep borehole, storage tank, treatment plant and distribution network.
