WaterAid's sanitation work

A pit latrine in rural Tanzania.

Credit: WaterAid / Alex Macro

WaterAid, through its partners, helps communities plan and construct hygienic latrines.

We use technologies that are low cost and appropriate to local financial and geographical conditions.

These can be a variety of designs, using different materials with different costs. Yet, given a little technical help, all can be built and maintained by communities or families themselves.

In rural areas all of these latrines are pit latrines, usually lined to prevent collapse (unless they are shallow ecological sanitation latrines), covered with a concrete squat slab with a structure made of local materials built around it for privacy.

Outside simple washing facilities are also constructed so that users can wash their hands after using the latrines.

Why are latrines important?

Latrines are vital to provide a barrier to diseases carried in faecal matter. These pathogens can enter people's mouths via a number of routes including water, soil, flies and fingers. This is called the faecal-oral route.

When used in conjunction with hygiene education WaterAid technologies block this route and so reduce the likelihood of diseases being transmitted.

Types of latrine

WaterAid and its partners promote the following types of latrine in rural areas:

• Dry pit latrines
• Ventilated improved pit (VIP) latrines (that have vent pipes to take smells and disease carrying insects away from the latrines)
• Pour flush latrines
• Ecological sanitation (EcoSan) latrines (which safely renew human waste as compost)

Watch a film about EcoSan latrines in Mozambique here. 

Urban sanitation

Pit latrines are not always appropriate for use in urban areas.

Credit: WaterAid / Caroline Irby

In urban areas different solutions are often needed. Pit latrines can be inappropriate as they fill too quickly and the large numbers needed can eventually pollute underground water supplies.

In some cases septic tanks are used but where possible, we help community groups build sewerage systems that can be linked to the city's systems and treatment works.

We also help these groups to build and manage communal toilets and washing facilities.

However in all cases it is vitally important that latrines are used hygienically so that the maximum health benefits are maintained. A new latrine will only significantly reduce incidences of diarrhoea if:

• Everyone uses the latrines so that no human waste is left in the open which can pollute the environment and water sources

• Children's waste is disposed of safely

• Latrines are properly maintained or cleaned

• Hands are washed by everyone at all critical times including before eating, after going to the toilet and before preparing food

• Food is thoroughly cleaned, properly stored and heated through to prevent the spread of germs

Because integrating water, sanitation and hygiene education is so essential we carry out all three of these elements in our projects.

Investments in water quality and quantity can reduce diarrhoeal diseases by 15%, whereas sanitation can reduce them by 36% and hygiene by 35%.

The wider view

On a personal scale, improved hygiene behaviour and sanitation services lead to better health. This in turn gives the poor more time to work to earn more money to support their families.

On a larger scale, improved water supply and sanitation infrastructure and services attract industries and investments into a community.

There is increasing recognition of the links between poverty and poor sanitation. At the World Summit on Sustainable Development in 2002, all UN Governments agreed to a target to halve the proportion of people without sanitation by 2015.

This is now one of the Millennium Development Goals set in an aim to halve world poverty by 2015.

The other targets on achieving universal primary education, reducing mortality rates for infants and children and reducing maternal mortality are unlikely to be met if the global sanitation problem is not addressed.