An effort has been made to provide drinking water to Malian cities with populations of over 10,000 inhabitants, but the development of disorderly housing settlements and increasing pollution affect the quantity and quality of water available to residents, which has a dramatic impact on health. In fact, water-related diseases such as cholera, diarrhoea and the guinea worm represent more than 80% of all illnesses in Mali.
Since the early 1990s, over 700 communal councils have been created to share the responsibility of water management and to maintain the infrastructure. However, though access to water is, on the whole, increasing, access to adequate quantities of clean water is still a problem in both rural and urban areas.