WHAT is WaSH

And
Why is it
IMPORTANT?
 Water, Sanitation and Hygiene
• Water is 20lpd/p (drinking, cooking,
personal hygiene: safe, accessible,
affordable, sufficient)
• Sanitation is disposal of feces and
urine that prevents transmission of
pathogens to water supply and food
sources.
• Hygiene is the practice of maintaining
personal cleanliness to prevent illness
How can adequate WASH
protect children?
 Reduction in Diarrhea Morbidity from
Water, Sanitation and Hygiene
Interventions
Intervention Reduction in diarrhoea
morbidity
Improved Sanitation (excreta 37.5%
disposal)
Hand washing at critical times 35%

Improved water supply 21%

Improvement of drinking water 45%

quality (such as point of use
disinfection)
Source: http://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/publications/facts2004/en/
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1/18/2018
Cost of Inadequate Sanitation
INDIRECT IMPACT OF DIRRHEAL DISEASE
DIARRHEA
Attributed to poor
water and sanitation,
diarrhea causes 1.4
million preventable
child death per year
STUNTING
India has some of the
world’s worst stunting
as a result of more
than half of population
not using toilet
LOWER SCHOOL AND
WORK PRODUCTIVITY
Contributing economic
impacts of a least 3%
of GDP
 Cost of Inadequate Sanitation

economic costs in the

Poor sanitation led to

order of US$ 1.4 billion, equivalent to about

1.5% of GDP in 2005 and translated to per capita losses of
US$ 16.8 per year.
The health impacts represented the
largest source of quantified economic costs at about
US$ 1 billion, this item explained about
72% of total economic costs.

The Philippines loses more than P77.8 billion pesos annually due to
poor sanitation

Source: Economic Impacts of Sanitation in the Philippines,” a study published in February 2008 by the World Bank Water and Sanitation Program (WSP) with co-funding from the
United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Environmental Cooperation-Asia (ECO-Asia) program.
 Access to WASH throughout a girl’s life yields
positive impacts for generations
First
Five INFANT MORTALITY RATES are reduced 7X in countries with access
to improved sanitation
Years
Child handwashing during the 1st 30 months of age results in significant gains in
global developmental quotients such as height, weight and social skills
Over 50% of primary schools in developing countries lack adequate water facilities
Over 40% of diarrheal cases in schools children result from transmission at school,
Primary not at home
Education

50-95% of girls miss up to 4 days of school per month because of menses. 39%
reported reduced performance
Secondary A 15% minute reduction time in water collection can increase proportion of girls
Education attending school by 8-12%

44% reduction in risks of child death if mothers wash their hands with soap prior to
handling their newborn children
Projects involving women are more likely to positively influence health & hygiene of the
Mother& next generation
Families

Each 10% increase in female literacy can increase a country’s economy by

0.3%. Women who attend school are less like to die during childbirth
What is Undernutrition?
Low Height for age Low weight for height

STUNTED CHILD WASTED CHILD

How does poor WASH contribute to
causing undernutrition?
 And it is about dignity and rights
“Sanitation, more than many
other human rights issues,
evokes the concept of human
dignity”
Report of the UN independent expert on the issue of human rights
obligations related to access to safe
drinking water and sanitation, 2009

“Women, more than men,

suffer the indignity of being
forced to defecate in the
open, at risk of assault and
rape. ”
Insecurity and Indignity: Women’s experiences in urban slums in
Kenya, Amnesty International 2010