• News
    • Latest news
    • News search
    • Health
    • Finance
    • Food
    • Career news
    • Content series
    • Try Devex Pro
  • Jobs
    • Job search
    • Post a job
    • Employer search
    • CV Writing
    • Upcoming career events
    • Try Career Account
  • Funding
    • Funding search
    • Funding news
  • Talent
    • Candidate search
    • Devex Talent Solutions
  • Events
    • Upcoming and past events
    • Partner on an event
  • Post a job
  • About
      • About us
      • Membership
      • Newsletters
      • Advertising partnerships
      • Devex Talent Solutions
      • Contact us
Join DevexSign in
Join DevexSign in

News

  • Latest news
  • News search
  • Health
  • Finance
  • Food
  • Career news
  • Content series
  • Try Devex Pro

Jobs

  • Job search
  • Post a job
  • Employer search
  • CV Writing
  • Upcoming career events
  • Try Career Account

Funding

  • Funding search
  • Funding news

Talent

  • Candidate search
  • Devex Talent Solutions

Events

  • Upcoming and past events
  • Partner on an event
Post a job

About

  • About us
  • Membership
  • Newsletters
  • Advertising partnerships
  • Devex Talent Solutions
  • Contact us
  • My Devex
  • Update my profile % complete
  • Account & privacy settings
  • My saved jobs
  • Manage newsletters
  • Support
  • Sign out
Latest newsNews searchHealthFinanceFoodCareer newsContent seriesTry Devex Pro
    • Career
    • World Water Day

    What's your hashtag this #WorldWaterDay?

    The fight for clean drinking water is taking place on social media, and #WorldWaterDay isn’t the only hashtag to watch. Here's three other hashtags that have championed the provision of clean drinking water around the world.

    By Jenny Lei Ravelo // 22 March 2016
    A pair of hands with crisscrossed fingers form a hashtag. What’s your World Water Day hashtag? Photo by: Petri Kananen / CC BY-NC

    On Tuesday, hashtag #WorldWaterDay will no doubt again flood Twitter feeds.

    This year’s theme focuses on people — those whose jobs rely on water, from the traditional female water carrier in many remote villages in Africa, fishermen and farmers to water utility workers who test the safety of drinking water. Almost half of the world's workers — 1.5 billion people — work in water-related sectors and nearly all jobs depend on water and those that ensure its safe delivery, according to the United Nations.

    But #WorldWaterDay isn’t the only hashtag to watch on this U.N.-designated day. Charity: Water will also be launching its 10th anniversary campaign, #FightDirty. It’s a bit early, according to the charity’s CEO Scott Harrison, as the organization doesn’t officially turn 10 years old until September. But he said the team has “so many ideas on how to honor the past, and also look forward to the future.”

    The campaign will run for 10 months starting Tuesday, with the aim of honoring those who’ve helped bring clean water to different places in Africa, Asia, and Central and South America where the organization is active, as well as to inspire more people to join the team in the fight to bring clean drinking water to the remaining 663 million people who still live without it, Harrison said in a video clip.

    The charity frequently uses hashtags in its campaigns. In September 2015, it raised $1.8 million dollars in a campaign that used the hashtag #nothingiscrazy.

    But it’s not the only organization that has entered the world of hashtag-based campaigns for water. This World Water Day, we look back at three other hashtags that championed the provision of clean drinking water around the world.

    #FirstWorldProblems

    via Youtube

    At close to 7 million views on YouTube, this campaign video by Water is Life in 2012 — where it “hijacked” the popular hashtag #firstworldproblems — no doubt reached a sizable number of people for a campaign that aimed to raise awareness about lack of clean drinking water, proper sanitation and hygiene in many parts of the world. The charity didn’t reveal how much money the campaign helped raise, only that it was “enough donations” to help provide “over 1 million days worth of clean water to those in need.”

    #nofilter

    Waves for Water is another nonprofit that used an existing popular hashtag in its campaign. During World Water Day 2015, the organization, in partnership with American apparel company Hurley, hijacked the hashtag #nofilter, and pledged to provide a gallon of clean drinking water to communities around the world for every #nofilter post on Instagram, the platform where the hashtag is most popular. The organization calculated that each of its water filters could provide 1 million gallons of water. By the end of the campaign, Waves for Water counted almost 160 million mentions of the #nofilter hashtag, which translated to 160 million gallons of water using 160 water filters.

    #thebigdig

    In 2012, two of WaterAid’s field staff live-blogged and posted Instagram photos to document the progress of the organization’s work drilling boreholes to provide safe drinking water to thousands of people in the remote villages of Bokola and Kaniche in Malawi. The posts, which used the hashtag #thebigdig, showed just how the money from the organization’s The Big Dig Appeal — which aimed to raise 1.2 million pounds to provide clean water to 134,000 people in the two villages — was being used. The appeal was able to raise over 1 million pounds ($1.44 million), which was matched by the United Kingdom.

    Follow the #WorldWaterDay conversation at @devex.

    Our mission is to do more good for more people. If you think the right information can make a difference, we invite you to join us by making a small investment in Professional Membership.

    • Water & Sanitation
    • Global Health
    Printing articles to share with others is a breach of our terms and conditions and copyright policy. Please use the sharing options on the left side of the article. Devex Pro members may share up to 10 articles per month using the Pro share tool ( ).

    About the author

    • Jenny Lei Ravelo

      Jenny Lei Ravelo@JennyLeiRavelo

      Jenny Lei Ravelo is a Devex Senior Reporter based in Manila. She covers global health, with a particular focus on the World Health Organization, and other development and humanitarian aid trends in Asia Pacific. Prior to Devex, she wrote for ABS-CBN, one of the largest broadcasting networks in the Philippines, and was a copy editor for various international scientific journals. She received her journalism degree from the University of Santo Tomas.

    Search for articles

    Most Read

    • 1
      How low-emissions livestock are transforming dairy farming in Africa
    • 2
      The UN's changing of the guard
    • 3
      Opinion: Mobile credit, savings, and insurance can drive financial health
    • 4
      Opinion: India’s bold leadership in turning the tide for TB
    • 5
      Lasting nutrition and food security needs new funding — and new systems
    • News
    • Jobs
    • Funding
    • Talent
    • Events

    Devex is the media platform for the global development community.

    A social enterprise, we connect and inform over 1.3 million development, health, humanitarian, and sustainability professionals through news, business intelligence, and funding & career opportunities so you can do more good for more people. We invite you to join us.

    • About us
    • Membership
    • Newsletters
    • Advertising partnerships
    • Devex Talent Solutions
    • Post a job
    • Careers at Devex
    • Contact us
    © Copyright 2000 - 2025 Devex|User Agreement|Privacy Statement