Africa Water, Sanitation & Hygiene November 2018 Vol.13 No.5 | Page 15

When nature calls, we need a toilet. But, billions of
people don’t have one.
This means human faeces, on a massive scale, is not
being captured or treated.
We are turning our environment into an open sewer.
We must build toilets and sanitation systems that
work in harmony with ecosystems. When nature calls,
we have to listen and act.
HEADLINE FACTS
• Today, 4.5 billion people live without a safe toilet and
892 million people still practise open defecation – this
means human faeces, on a massive scale, is not be-
ing captured or treated. 4
• An estimated 1.8 billion people use an unimproved
source of drinking water with no protection against
contamination from human faeces. 5
• One fifth of schools worldwide do not provide any
toilet facilities – a particular problem for girls during
menstruation. 6
• 900 million schoolchildren across the world have
no handwashing facil-
ities – a critical barrier
in the spread of deadly
diseases. 7
• Globally, over 80% of
the wastewater gener-
ated by society flows
back into the environ-
ment without being
treated or reused. 8
4 WHO/UNICEF (2017): Progress on drinking water, sanitation and hygiene: 2017 update and SDG baselines.
5 WHO/UNICEF (2017): Progress on drinking water, sanitation and hygiene: 2017 update and SDG baselines.
6 WHO/UNICEF (2018): Drinking Water, Sanitation and Hygiene in Schools: 2018 Global Baseline Report
7 WHO/UNICEF (2018): Drinking Water, Sanitation and Hygiene in Schools: 2018 Global Baseline Report
8 On average, high-income countries treat about 70% of the wastewater they generate, while that ratio drops to 38% in upper-middle-income coun-
All information
factsheet comes from
UNESCO
United countries,
Nations World
Water
Development
Report 2018:
Nature-based
solutions
for water
tries
and to 28% in in this
lower-middle-income
countries.
In (2018)
low-income
only 8%
of industrial
and municipal
wastewater
undergoes
treatment
of
unless
specified
any
kind
(Sato et. otherwise.
al, 2013).
Africa Water, Sanitation & Hygiene • November 2018
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