WikiWorldBook is a young, small vibrant company and we subscribe to strong ethical business policies. As part of these policies, we give 10% of our annual revenues to charities which help combat global poverty and suffering. We give 10% of our revenue, rather than 10% of our profit, because this ensures that that a whole 10% of the income generated will, without deduction, be passed to the charity identified below. Obviously this amount will be pitifully small to start with compared to the scale of the problems, but we hope that as our site grows, the amount we are able to give will become significant.

When deciding what area of global poverty to concentrate on, it is difficult to know where to start, the problems are so grave. The critical problems associated with poverty have mostly been overcome in the wealthy countries of the world but, in the world's poorest countries, the poor still have the constant worry about whether their food will run out or the next illness they contract will kill them or, even worse, their children. Poverty can be defined in many ways and unfortunately the distinctions between what things are classed as poverty has become blurred, which has helped blind people to the daily struggle for life that many still face. Without wishing to court controversy, we will keep it very simple - we will define poverty as it used to be defined - little or no access to the basic elements necessary to sustain life - food, clean water, shelter. Of these, we believe that access to clean water is the most important, simply on the basis that without it life cannot survive very long. That is why for the foreseeable future, we will concentrate on giving money to combat the problems of clean water.

More than one out of six people lack access to safe drinking water, namely 1.1 billion people, and more than two out of six lack adequate sanitation, namely 2.6 billion people (Estimation for 2002, by the WHO/UNICEF JMP, 2004). 3900 children die every day from water borne diseases (WHO 2004). What century are we in?

The World Health Organization:- http://www.who.int/en/

The Water Council:- http://www.worldwatercouncil.org/index.php?id=25

WaterAid.org

http://www.wateraid.org/

We have identified WaterAid.org as the recipient of our first annual donation, from a long list of worthy organisations. Once you have read about them on their site, we are sure that you will agree that the money will be going to a very good cause. As an organization, they have already helped millions of people gain access to clean drinking water.

The money we raise through your help will be paid to WaterAid.org on 1st May 2009 and we will publish the amount that has been raised here. In the meantime, if you wish to make a donation directly to Water.org to support the tremendous work that they are doing globally, you can do so by going directly to http://www.wateraid.org/international/donate/default.asp