Protesters in San Salvador demand better access to water © Marcos Sanjuan/Progressio

With over 2 million people living without a regular water supply, Progressio development worker Marcos Sanjuan says the struggle for water is far from over in El Salvador: 42% of the population now lack access to the most basic resource.

Can you imagine what it would be like not to have any water? Every time you wanted to wash, cook or simply have a drink, you'd be forced to find water wherever you could. There's no tap to turn on at home. You may spend several hours each day collecting water. You might even have to pay as much as 10 per cent of your income on water. This may stop your children from going to school, or you from going to work. This is the situation for over 2 million people in El Salvador - some 42 per cent of the population.

Water is not a basic human right in El Salvador. It's not pumped to every home. Your chances of having a water supply are higher if you live in a town - 73 per cent of urban dwellers have a water supply. But only 31 per cent of rural dwellers do.

That's just water. There isn't a sewage system. Sanitation is a tragedy. The combination of lack of water and poor sanitation means that 32 children die every day in El Salvador from diarrhoeal diseases. That's 21,000 preventable deaths every year.

There have been moves recently to privatise the water supply putting it even further out of reach of the poorest people.

That's why Progressio partner organisation UNES is campaigning on this issue. March 2009 sees El Salvador's general elections. Campaigning has already begun. So, they're using this moment when politicians want people's votes to lobby them about the need to improve the country's water supply.

They are aiming to bring together a broad coalition of NGOs and political bodies who want to see change. They intend to hold meetings with parliamentarians later this year.

But, in El Salvador, nothing is simple. The civil war has left a polarised, divided society. Groups from the Right and the Left will not speak to each other. And UNES is trying to bring them together to lobby about water provision.

It's not easy. Long-standing mistrust dies hard. However, progress is being made and it is vital that it is. The world's most powerful leaders have committed to changing this situation. One of the Millennium Development Goals is to halve the number of people who don't have access to safe drinking water by 2015.

Fine words need to be changed into a finer reality. Promises need to make a difference to the daily lives of people in El Salvador.

Last year civil society groups organised a march in the capital, San Salvador, demanding more investment in water resources and for the protection of people's right to water. An estimated 25-35,000 people attended. This was a huge event for El Salvador.

As I watched the procession go by, one woman told me why she'd come that day. She said, 'We women have to spend four hours a day looking for water and this means that our work is put at risk.

'We face tiredness and a lack of safety on the journey and do not have time for other things like education.'

As the protesters marched past the Metrocentro shopping centre, they passed a sprinkler watering the grass under the midday sun. It enraged a young man who was taking part in the march. He said, 'Look how they're wasting the water.

'In my community, we only get water for two hours every four days…but the water bills always turn up on time. We are paying for the air in the pipes.'

El Salvador's elections next March represent a pivotal moment for this beleaguered country. By lobbying now on an issue which people perceive to be the most important thing in their daily lives, UNES is hoping to galvanise the political elite to take water seriously and provide this basic right for its people.

Marcos Sanjuan is a Progressio development worker in El Salvador.