I'm disappointed that the article conflates together "safe" and "convenient". Out of the 2B who "don't have safe drinking water", About 1.75B have an "improved source", which is a source that "is not free from contamination, [or] is not on the premises, or [is not] always available."
Of course we should work toward a world where everyone has clean, highly available water inside the home, but by conflating "unsafe" with "outside the home", the article gives the impression of trying to gin up support by exaggerating the safety problem. On some level, I get it. "2B People Don't Have Safe Running Water Inside Their Homes," is considerably less punchy, even if more accurate.
I can see some amount of counter-argument though. If 95% of your drinking water is clean, but then you were thirsty at 2am and you wouldn't have more clean water until someone went 5 miles up the road to the "improved source" to refill buckets, and so you drank some unclean water that was convenient and you got sick... that's still a big problem.
Convenience is a safety feature. The safe option has to also be the convenient option, or people will actively seek out unsafe but convenient options.
Usually you notice a few days before when your stock is starting to run out. If you make coffee every day, would you be surprised that you're out of coffee one morning, or would you notice the day before that you need to buy some coffee?
My understanding is that these areas are services by a single well or spigot that serves an entire small community. Like in rural (poor) India. So you don't stockpile water for days, you're fetching it daily. But then meanwhile there's also "traditional" (unclean/less clean) water sources available much closer to or in the homes.
I guess technically "convenient" is an accurate word. Yet.... "avialable" often includes half the family walking hours each way every day to fetch water, depriving the children a chance to be educated, and adults a chance to earn income or take care of other necessities. In a lot of these regions there is a fairly high risk of being attacked on your daily water journey... I'd consider a water source that exposes me to murder an unsafe water source.
Also since you're quibbling "on the premises" its worth noting that an outside spigot/cistern/well on the property counts, as does a common water source in the courtyard of a multifamily dwelling. Depending on how the property laws, typical housing layout, and culture work in an area, that could even mean an entire village having a well - I'd have to dig into that definition more thought. That's different than "inside the home" and it's fancy "turn on the kitchen sink for a glass of water" implications.
Of course we should work toward a world where everyone has clean, highly available water inside the home, but by conflating "unsafe" with "outside the home", the article gives the impression of trying to gin up support by exaggerating the safety problem. On some level, I get it. "2B People Don't Have Safe Running Water Inside Their Homes," is considerably less punchy, even if more accurate.