As of 2019, UNICEF has been working in over 80 countries to improve access to WASH in health-care facilities. Our work focuses on technical assistance to governments for the construction and rehabilitation of WASH infrastructure, as well as on developing national standards, policies and hygiene protocols for WASH in health-care facilities. With support from UNICEF, over 1,700 villages were certified as open defecation free in 2020. We contributed to achieving improved access to safe drinking water for more than 105,000 people, while supporting almost 360,000 people to access safe drinking water in 12 flood-affected counties. We provided 106 primary schools with gender and disability sensitive water, sanitation and hygiene facilities in 2020, partly in response to COVID-19. The Joint Monitoring Programme for Water Supply and Sanitation of WHO and UNICEF (JMP) has been publishing reports of updated estimates every two years on the use of various types of drinking-water sources and sanitation facilities at the national, regional and global levels. The JMP report for 2015 stated that: [37] The global methane emissions from NSSS in 2020 was estimated to as 377 Mt CO2e per year or 4.7% of global anthropogenic methane emissions, which are comparable to the greenhouse gas emissions from wastewater treatment plants. [39] This means that the GHG emissions from the NSSS as a non-negligible source. [39] Safely managed sanitation [ edit ] Share of population using safely managed sanitation facilities in 2015 [40] Number of Handwashing Facilities in the world, 2017

Effective sanitation systems provide barriers between excreta and humans in such a way as to break the disease transmission cycle (for example in the case of fecal-borne diseases). [20] This aspect is visualised with the F-diagram where all major routes of fecal-oral disease transmission begin with the letter F: feces, fingers, flies, fields, fluids, food. [21] UN Habitat and WHO, 2021. Progress on wastewater treatment – Global status and acceleration needs for SDG indicator 6.3.1. United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat) and World Health Organization (WHO), Geneva.

WHO response

UNICEF supports the Government of India’s flagship programmes, including the Swachh Bharat Mission, the Jal Jeevan Mission and WASH in Schools (including preschools called ‘anganwadis’). There has been positive progress. Between 2015 and 2022, the proportion of the world’s population with access to safely managed drinking water increased from 69 per cent to 73 per cent. Why? Sanitation can include personal sanitation and public hygiene. Personal sanitation work can include handling menstrual waste, cleaning household toilets, and managing household garbage. Public sanitation work can involve garbage collection, transfer and treatment ( municipal solid waste management), cleaning drains, streets, schools, trains, public spaces, community toilets and public toilets, sewers, operating sewage treatment plants, etc. [15] :4 Workers who provide these services for other people are called sanitation workers. In 2010, the UN General Assembly recognized access to safe and clean drinking water and sanitation as a human right and called for international efforts to help countries to provide safe, clean, accessible and affordable drinking-water and sanitation. Sustainable Development Goal target 6.2 calls for adequate and equitable sanitation for all and target 6.3 calls for halving the proportion of untreated wastewater and substantially increasing recycling and safe reuse. Safely managed sanitation facilities: “Safely managed sanitation” is defined as the use of an improved sanitation facility which is not shared with other households and where:

Improving sanitation in households, health facilities and schools underpins progress on a wide range of health and economic development issues including universal health coverage and combatting antimicrobial resistance. The new WHO Guidelines on Sanitation and Health summarize the evidence on the effectiveness of a range of sanitation interventions and provide a comprehensive framework for health-protecting sanitation, covering policy and governance measures, implementation of sanitation technologies, systems, and behavioral interventions, risk-based management, and monitoring approaches.a b Harvey, Peter; etal. (2007). Excreta disposal in emergencies a field manual: an inter-agency publication. Loughborough: Loughborough university. Water, engineering and development centre (WEDC). p.250. ISBN 978-1-84380-113-9. Further information: History of water supply and sanitation, Toilet §History, and History of waste management Community-led total sanitation (CLTS) is an approach used mainly in developing countries to improve sanitation and hygiene practices in a community. The approach tries to achieve behavior change in mainly rural people by a process of "triggering", leading to spontaneous and long-term abandonment of open defecation practices. It focuses on spontaneous and long-lasting behavior change of an entire community. The term "triggering" is central to the CLTS process: It refers to ways of igniting community interest in ending open defecation, usually by building simple toilets, such as pit latrines. CLTS involves actions leading to increased self-respect and pride in one's community. [29] It also involves shame and disgust about one's own open defecation behaviors. [29] CLTS takes an approach to rural sanitation that works without hardware subsidies and that facilitates communities to recognize the problem of open defecation and take collective action to clean up and become "open defecation free". Dry sanitation [ edit ] Exposed faecal matter contaminates food, water and the environment, and can spread serious diseases, such as cholera. Coupled with poor hygiene practices, exposure to faecal matter remains a leading cause of child mortality, morbidity, undernutrition and stunting, and can negatively impact a child's cognitive development.

UNICEF also supported community initiatives on menstrual hygiene management (MHM), benefiting over 15,000 adolescent girls who were out of school due to COVID-19 in 2020. The girls received sanitary pads which can be reused for over one year. We also trained implementing partners to provide education and information on MHM to girls and women. In 2022, 57% of the global population (4.6 billion people) used a safely managed sanitation service. Without water, sanitation and hygiene services, mothers and newborns may not receive the quality of care they need to survive and thrive. When health-care facilities are equipped with safe WASH services, members of the community are more likely to visit them, and health workers are able to model good sanitation and hygiene practices. Limiting global warming to 1.5°C compared to 2°C would approximately halve the proportion of the world population expected to suffer water scarcity, although there is considerable variability between regions. Chapter 8: Water Cycle Changes (p. 1063)There are some variations on the use of the term "sanitation" between countries and organizations. The World Health Organization defines the term "sanitation" as follows:

Diarrhoea remains a major killer but is largely preventable. Better water, sanitation, and hygiene could prevent the deaths among children aged under 5 years, 395000 in the year 2019. Sanitation is the effective use of tools and actions that keep our environment healthy. These include latrines or toilets to manage waste, food preparation, washing stations, effective drainage, and other such mechanisms.

By 2020, protect and restore water-related ecosystems, including mountains, forests, wetlands, rivers, aquifers and lakes