can you drink saltwater?

I see a lot of comments suggesting freshwater for Tuvaluans to help cope with times of drought or no rain.Have these people seen what the islands of Tuvalu are like in size?

Tuvalu is an island group of 8 atolls (coral islands consisting of a reef surrounding a lagoon) and 4 islands in the South Pacific Ocean. It is located midway between Australia and Hawaii. The island chain stretches some 676 kilometers (420 miles) from the southern island of Niulakita to the northern-most island of Nanumea and covers 757,000 square kilometers (292,278 square miles) of ocean, but it has a total land area of only 26 square kilometers (10 square miles), including 24 kilometers (15 miles) of coastline. Tuvalu's land area is one-tenth the size of the city of Washington, D.C., making it one of the smallest nations in the world. Funafuti, the capital and largest city, is located on the islet of Fongafale in the Funafuti Atoll. The nation's largest island is Vaitupu at 4.9 square kilometers (1.89 square miles) and the smallest is Niulakita at 0.41 square kilometers (0.16 square miles). All of Tuvalu is less than 4.5 meters (15 feet) above sea-level. Due to environmental factors such as rising ocean levels and soil erosion.
 Read more: Tuvalu - Location and size, Population, Industry, Dependencies, Capital:, Monetary unit: http://www.nationsencyclopedia.com/economies/Asia-and-the-Pacific/Tuvalu.html#ixzz1cCPwOnpo

Meanwhile, a few of the islands do not have wells, while others only have one or two wells  that the people can get the water from and these wells are small and couldn't possibly cater for the need of water for a population on an island. Maybe these people are suggestions underlying their comments is that more wells need to be dug. If more wells are dug on these tiny islands, it will greatly damage their natural enviroment and these small islands will just be full of holes(wells) and there will not be insufficient space for the future generations of Tuvalu to build their homes.
Most importantly these outsiders have to think of the impacts of climate change before making such comments. In the recent years, Tuvaluans are eating less and less of their traditional food , 'the pulaka' or giant taro because most the plants died due to salt water intrusion into the freshwater that these plants depend on to live. In the past years, the meat of these 'pulaka' is so tasty and rich just like the taro in Fiji, but now if you pull out a pulaka, the meat is not as good as in the past years. This is evident enought of the rising sea level. The point that i'm trying to emphasise here here is: if the plants are facing serious problems of salty water fusion with the freshwater that they grow in, how can the people of Tuvalu today use the freshwater. The freshwater are so salty and you can't use it for washing  clothes and you can't use to bath nor for animals consumption.
And then there is water contamination on the other hand. The ground water in Tuvalu is contaminated and will only create more health problems for the people if consumed.
I believe that donors should help by providing free tanks and improving roofs and gutters free of charge for the Tuvaluans.