There was a recent Twestival charity event that raised money for Charity: Water. To find out some interesting statistics regarding drinking water, watch this video by iJustine. She is also on Twitter if you want to follow her.
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I've read 20 percent, and I've seen as much as 40 percent.

According to the Harvard University Gazette Online, "Forty percent of world lacks clean water"
Source(s):
http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2007/05.17/05-water.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drinking_water#Access_to_drinking_water

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It is difficult to say the exact percentage but you can approximately say 'as given in cnn site'
---Quote---
'One sixth of the world's population does not have access to clean drinking water'
---/Quote---
Source(s):
http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/science/09/17/water.crisis/

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The latest data I can find, is that 87% of people currently have access to clean drinking water, and therefore 13% don't.

That figure is up from 77% having access to clean water in 1977, and the world is on target to reach the goal we set ourselves to reach 90% having access by 2015. However Africa is behind the target, and the world is badly behind on the target for sanitation.

Info taken from UK's Dept for International Development, Jan 2009 (despite the fact that the url has 2006 in it!):

http://www.dfid.gov.uk/pubs/files/mdg-factsheets/water-factsheet-2006.pdf

Original data source, World Health Org, Joint Monitoring Programme. There's a 15Mb report here, which I have not read:

http://www.wssinfo.org/en/40_MDG2008.html
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About 1.1 billion people don't have running water. Most industrialized countries are listed at 100% access to clean water (http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/hea_dri_wat_ava-health-drinking-water-availability). However, the US is not 100%, though close to it...which is often overlooked. here's the google link to a ppt.
http://209.85.173.132/search?q=cache:MLnHqr4jqc4J:withoutcleanwater.files.wordpress.com/2008/05/without_clean_water.ppt+access+to+clean+water+on+reservations&cd=8&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-a
"As recently as the 26 of August 2007, 80,000 thousand people on the Navajo Reservation in Arizona had NO running water. Navajo representatives stated that there would be a water war if nothing was done.

There is a 270 mile pipeline named the Navajo-Gallup Water Supply Project, being fought by agricultural groups, to relieve the nearly 80,000 Navajo people without running water. "

We had the same problem back home on Pine Ridge Reservation...the Mni Wiconi Project came about to address these issues, but it is still in construction. Most people in these areas get by by hauling water for several miles, and some reservations have programs in which large water trucks go by residences and fill water storage tanks at their home.

http://www.operationmorningstar.org/angel_of_pine_ridge.htm
"He cites the 85 percent unemployment rate, the per capita income of less then $2,800, more than 60 percent of tribal members are living below the poverty level, 1/3 of the houses are without running water or electricity. "

http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/359/8/784
"Despite 150 years of acceptance of the healthful effects of clean water, an estimated 1.1 billion people still lack access to it, and 2.6 billion people lack access to adequate sanitation."

http://raleigh.twestival.com/2009/02/08/one-in-six-of-us-have-no-access-to-clean-drinking-water/
"One in six of us have no access to clean drinking water"
"Did you know that 1.1 billion people don’t have access to clean water?"

http://www.mofa.go.jp/policy/environment/wssd/2002/document/us.html
"Today, nearly one-third of the World's population lives with chronic shortages of water that directly threaten human health, agriculture and economic development. More than 1 billion people lack access to safe drinking water, more than 2 billion adequate sanitation. Some 6,000 children die every day from water related diseases. By 2025, nearly two-thirds of the World's population will experience some form of water-related stress. Appropriately, water is one of the main topics of the World Summit on Sustainable Development and the focus of the Third World Water Forum and the International Ministerial Conference, to be held in Japan next March."
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I hope I don't upset anybody, but there just isn't a better straight man for me right now then these questions. That being said: 100% of my fine city, Milwaukee WI, does not have access to clean drinking water. We here in Milwaukee live next to the biggest fresh water toilet in the world.
Source(s):
My eyes, and nose, each and every summer, the lake (Lake Michigan) gets worse and worse. Milwaukee pollutes the lake more than anybody else, including Chicago, which is about 13x larger. Scary, yet nobody seems to care.

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