Water for all: Exploring determinants of safe water access in developing regions

Sustainable development goals (SDGs) include ensuring the availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation. Although countries have made significant progress in achieving this goal, many nations in the world still lack access to safe drinking water. For example, in Latin America and the Caribbean, 161 million people (one in four) do not have adequate access to safe drinking water (ECLAC 2022). Despite these figures, no studies in the region have analyzed the factors that explain the probability that families have access to safe drinking water. It is crucial for governments to implement comprehensive public policies to address this multidimensional problem. Therefore, this study aimed to provide evidence of the most important factors that explain the probability of families in a developing country (Ecuador) to have access to safe water. Family income, education of the household head, type of housing tenure, type of water supply and source, area of residence (urban or rural), and the natural region where the family is located are significant variables that condition access to safe water. At the end of the document, we discuss the policy actions at length.