Kim Hjelmgaard

USA TODAY

Nearly 1B lack safe%2C consistent way of getting water

Matt Damon at Switzerland forum to discuss problem

%27Just so unthinkable%2C%27 actor says

DAVOS, Switzerland — The Oscar-winning actor Matt Damon is dealing with two issues here at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum. One is a trivial byproduct of the frenetic and high-paced networking that underpins this gathering of the world's global elite. The other is a matter of life and death.

The trivial first.

"I was at a dinner surrounded by all these incredible people, and when I turned to the guy next to me and asked him what he did (for a living), he said he was the prime minister of Finland," the star of the Bourne film series told USA TODAY on Thursday, clearly bemused that he failed to recognize a head of state.

Now the serious issue.

"It's just so unthinkable to those of us who grew up in America or Canada that anybody could ever lack access to clean water," said Damon, 43, who has traveled to this stunning Alpine setting close to the borders of Austria and Italy to talk about a seemingly mundane, yet frustratingly deadly problem.

Nearly 1 billion people lack a safe and consistent way of getting water, and one-third of the world's population — 2.5 billion people — don't have regular access to sanitation facilities. More people have a cellphone than have a toilet, and every 20 seconds, a child dies for lack of access to clean water and sanitation, according to Water.org, the non-profit that Damon founded with Gary White, a widely praised engineer and social entrepreneur who has been active in the water field for more than two decades.

"Years ago, I took a side trip to the slums of Guatemala City and was blown away by the kids collecting contaminated water, and the sewage there, so I started learning more about the problem and realized that with water, I could match up my interest in engineering with social justice," said White, also in Davos this week.

The water crisis is a problem that has many fronts, and organizations devoted to finding solutions favor different approaches, says David Winder, chief executive of WaterAid, a fellow firm in the field. Some groups are more explicitly engaged in hands-on engineering, while others are geared more heavily toward advocacy.

Industry expert's say that Water.org's point of differentiation is that it has a micro-finance program that is neither aid nor subsidization. Instead, it's a credit program that encourages people in emerging markets such as India, where the need is greatest, to pay for water delivery systems — often, wells and pipes — that it helps to create and install. The idea is modeled on the pioneering micro-finance ideas of Muhammad Yunus.

"Everybody's got a different reason to be interested on water in terms of security and scarcity. Our interest (Water.org's) is in access to it," Damon said.

He said that 250,000 people have gone through Water.org's credit program, in most cases borrowing around $150, and that 97% of those loans have been repaid. Water.org recently launched an investment fund that will seek to raise capital that can then be used for micro-loans.

"Gary and Matt are very aware of the importance of designing systems that can be managed by the local community," said WaterAid's Winder.

The water crisis is a major topic at this year's WEF and ranked third in the WEF's top 10 global risks for 2014.

In reply to a question about what gets done during Davos week, Damon said: "It's better to have these conventions where these issues are put on the table than not. Coming to a place like this, it's undeniable that we are all sharing the same world. Serious discussions are taking place, so hopefully, serious things will get done."

White chipped in: "Without being too presumptuous, it's about bringing the poor to the table. They are the ones dying every day for lack of clean water."

Damon's interest and commitment to the issue appears beyond dispute. "This is my one hobby outside of making films," he said Thursday in Davos. "It's my other job."

He said he did not know exactly how much time he spends working for Water.org, but he suspected that it was at least 10%. "It comes in bursts," he said. "It's not really possible to do a quick trip to India."

Speaking to USA TODAY on the sidelines of the WEF on Thursday, Richard Branson, the British serial entrepreneur behind the various Virgin companies including Virgin Galactic spaceflights, said: "I think it is wonderful that Matt Damon is using his profile and connections to campaign on this important issue. I also hope he is continuing his toilet strike," a reference to a humorous -- yet masking a serious point -- pledge that Damon made in February last year saying he would not use the bathroom until the world's water crisis was solved.

Branson also made the pledge.

In a USA TODAY brokered riposte, Damon said Thursday that he saw Branson coming out of a Davos men's room.

"Film stars are often in the fortunate position of being able to offer their help on any number of issues affecting the world, and sometimes, they scatter themselves too widely," said WaterAid's Winder. "But Damon's had a very admirable focus on water, and you'd have to say the industry as a whole is grateful."

You'd also have to say he has a pretty persuasive argument on his side.

"HIV/ AIDS or cancer research, it's easier to connect personally to those things because we all know people who have been afflicted by those," Damon said. "The fact that 2 million children are dying every year (because of the water crisis), it's almost something that doesn't make sense to us intellectually, because they are dying of completely preventable diseases. (Clean water) is something that we solved in the West a hundred years ago.

"Imagine if we cured HIV/ AIDS tomorrow, and in a hundred years, people were still dying from it," he said.