A 2025 report from the WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme showed that 2.1 billion people still lacked safely managed drinking water in 2024. It’s the kind of gap that led Matt Damon to water work in 2006. Most of us probably never think about the kitchen tap until it stops running. For many people, that worry is a daily one. That’s around one in four people.
He was there, walking with a 14-year-old girl who was going to collect water. Damon and the group that made a documentary about running across the Sahara Desert started the H2O Africa Foundation in 2006. Water.org has now reached more than 92 million people with safe water or sanitation. It reports to have reached almost 10 million alone in 2025 and hopes to reach 200 million people by 2030. The same Joint Monitoring Program report found that between 2015 and 2024, 961 million people gained safely managed drinking water. Still, 2.1 billion people did not have it in 2024, so the need remains huge.
For Damon, a trip to a Zambian village was a life-changing experience. For many of us, water comes at the turn of a handle. For her, that meant a long walk. It was intended to raise money and awareness for organizations that delivered clean water to remote communities. But he didn’t stop with that first foundation. The figures come from the group itself, so they should be read as Water.org’s own counts. These do not mean any change in water access around the world. But they do show how far one idea can go in twenty years. The larger picture is also changing.
Damon later said raising money was a lot easier than spending it wisely.
What began as one actor’s reaction to a young girl’s long walk for water has become a global effort built on a simple insight: people who are already paying for water can often be helped by access to credit instead of charity . The Indonesian study adds a word of caution. Loans may help families, especially with sanitation, but evidence is associative, and what borrowers do with the money matters.
However, with 2.1 billion people still without safely managed drinking water, a single model is unlikely to close the gap alone. But 20 years later, the idea Damon helped launch shows how a small repayable loan can help families gain access to a working tap.
