Everything you need to know about World Water Day 2025

It’s also designed to raise awareness for the 2.2 billion people living without access to safe water, and the larger global water crisis. 

Here’s what you need to know about the holiday’s significance and history, the theme for World Water Day 2025, Concern’s work to provide safe water access around the world, and how you can get involved. 

It’s easy to take water for granted until we don’t have enough of it on hand to live our daily lives. Yet what should be a basic human right has increasingly become a prized commodity for billions of people around the world, with many unable to afford or access it at all. 

Water infrastructure is often destroyed during conflict, which can also hinder humanitarian access that would otherwise truck in water supplies to civilians. Reports from Gaza have suggested that the cost of potable water has increased between double and quadruple the normal amount. In some cases, people have reported paying these prices for saltwater. Displacement camps for refugees and internally-displaced persons are often also underserviced in terms of water availability. 

Climate change is another key factor here, as seen in this year’s theme of glacier preservation. This is particularly true in Afghanistan, one of the countries hit hardest by climate change and the global water crisis. It recently emerged from its worst drought in over a quarter of a century, and has also seen severe flooding in the last several decades as many of the country’s 4,000 glaciers have begun to melt. Researchers estimate that 14% of the country’s total area of glaciers was lost between 1990 and 2015, “a direct result of climate change.” 

This year’s World Water Day theme is glacier preservation. With snow and ice comprising 70% of the Earth’s freshwater, glaciers are a critical source for drinking water, as well as water used in crop irrigation, clean energy, and healthy ecosystems. However, they can also threaten this access as well. UN-Water estimates that 2 billion people rely on glaciers, snow, and mountain run-off. 

With increased global temperatures, glaciers are melting at a faster pace. The overall changes in water flows driven by this have included devastating floods, landslides, and sea level rises — as well as, in some cases, droughts. In 2023, glaciers lost more than 600 gigatonnes of water — the largest mass loss of water recorded in 50 years, according to the World Meteorological Organization. The IPCC estimates that today’s sea level is 20 centimeters higher than it was in 1900, an increase in part related to rapidly-melting glaciers.

The UN has also declared 2025 the International Year of Glaciers’ Preservation. 

We don’t talk about glaciers that much at Concern, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t carry a tremendous impact in many of the countries where we work (fun fact: many of the world’s glaciers are inventoried and tracked by several monitoring services).

In addition to Afghanistan, there are glaciers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (in the Rwenzori Mountains), Kenya (which has several on Mount Kenya and is also close to the glaciers in Kilimanjaro), and Pakistan (which contains more glacial ice than any other country on Earth outside of the polar regions). 

Yet even counties without glaciers of their own are impacted by runoff. The 2023 World Risk Index notes that the melting of Himalayan glaciers runs into Bangladesh, contributing to flooding in 55% of the country. Experts estimate that all of the glacial caps in east Africa will be gone by the 2040s, which would have an impact across all of sub-Saharan Africa through increased droughts and floods. 

Concern has responded to floods in many of these countries in recent years, including the devastating 2022 floods in Pakistan (where we continue to support long-term recovery for those hit hardest) and increasingly intense monsoon and flood seasons in Bangladesh. We also support climate resilience projects in these areas to ensure both water availability and systems that can help mitigate the risk and damage caused by droughts and floods. 

In Afghanistan, we have also led initiatives that respond directly to the threats posed by glacial runoff. Learn more about one lifesaving watershed project here.

We can’t move at a glacial pace when it comes to preserving these valuable sources of freshwater and ensuring that communities living in their shadows remain safe from floods. 

One of the easiest ways to celebrate World Water Day is to take some time to better understand the causes of the global water crisis, the countries hit hardest by water stress and scarcity, and some of the ways that the crisis can be solved. Learn more in our resources below: