Safe toilets for all people in World Cup countries will take until the year 2159

on
18 November 2022
Eveline, 13, student in class three, standing next to the newly constructed  block of latrines and indicating a message on the wall at Balanghin school, in the commune of Andemtenga, Centre-East region, Burkina Faso, March 2022.
Image: WaterAid/ Basile Ouedraogo

It will be the year 2159 before every last household in all of the World Cup countries has a decent toilet, new analysis by WaterAid found.  

While millions are being spent on and off the Qatari football pitches, people in Ghana, contender in the World Cup, will have to wait until 2103 before every household has a decent toilet they don’t have to share with others. In Cameroon, it will take until the year 2159.  

The new analysis, which comes ahead of World Toilet Day (19 Nov) and the start of the World Cup, shows just how far behind the world is on its promise to ensure all people have access to safely managed sanitation, that is a decent toilet linked to waste treatment by 2030, WaterAid said. 

At the current pace, it will take an average of 136 years until all people living in Africa will have a decent household toilet, and 217 years to reach safely managed sanitation. It will take an average of 22 years before no one in Africa is forced to defecate in the open due to a lack of proper toilets nearby, the organisation added. 

The lack of progress is driven by insufficient investment by donors, governments and the private sector, and a lack of human resources and prioritisation in poorer countries, according to WaterAid, with some countries doing better than others.  

While the picture is gloomy, some countries are doing better than others. South Africa is on schedule to provide all households with at least decent household toilets within the next 21 years, while it will take Burkina Faso another 204 years. In Ethiopia it will take an estimated 323 years, based on the current progress and Liberia, while making good progress to provide basic water services to its population, might even have to wait until the year 2392 to have at least basic sanitation for all - another 370 years.  

The numbers do not take the impact of climate change into account, which could make the future of sanitation in some countries even more dire. A recent study by WaterAid in Mozambique showed that the number of people using ‘improved sanitation facilities’ doubled to just 28% between 2000 and 2014. But since, it has dropped back to 19%, largely due to the destruction of infrastructure by cyclones and floods. 

The numbers also do not take into account that governments can make sanitation a priority and hugely accelerate progress in the coming decades. If they invest the necessary resources, the timeframes would shorten dramatically, WaterAid said. 

Dr Andrés Hueso González, Senior Policy Analyst – Sanitation at WaterAid, said: “Toilets - they’re not fun, not exciting, but they save lives as a lack of sanitation kills, or traps people in a cycle of poverty. If people use a clean, well-managed toilet their performance at school goes up, as does their productivity at work; businesses do better, women have it easier to manage their periods – it’s a matter of health and human dignity. A lack of good sanitation cripples communities and whole economies.”  

WaterAid said that middle- and low-income countries don’t have enough human and financial capacity to drive sanitation policies and plans. The latest WHO-led GLAAS1 cycle asked countries if they had sufficient funding -at least three quarters of what's needed- to implement sanitation plans. Initial results indicate that only 22% and 15% of countries have enough funds for their urban and rural sanitation plans respectively.  

Also, donors are failing to step up – governmental development aid for sanitation (excluding big infrastructure like wastewater treatment) remained flat between 2015-2019, and dropped by 22% in 2020 under pressure of the global COVID-19 pandemic2.  

That is unacceptable, and there is no excuse for it. The world promised that everyone would have access to safely managed sanitation by 2030, but it is failing its promise by decades or even hundreds of years, in the case of some countries”, said Tim Wainwright, CE of WaterAid in the UK. “With climate change adding pressure to the progress that was made over the last decades, investment is urgently needed. We need governments, donors and the private sector to work together to tackle this huge issue – a no-regret investment as it battles disease and increases people wellbeing and productivity.” 

WaterAid is calling for countries to double their budgets for sanitation immediately. Likewise, donor-governments need to double their funding for sanitation as well, as soon as possible. These additional funds should not just be invested in infrastructure, but also in human capital, expertise, and the systems and policies to ensure sanitation services are maintained for decades to come, WaterAid said. 

ENDS 

Notes to Editors 

For more information, please contact:  
[email protected] our press office at [email protected] / +44 (0)7887 521 552  

  • WaterAid compared the progress on Sanitation in the whole of Africa (region), the countries south of the Sahara where it works, and the World Cup countries, using the Joint Monitoring Programme of WHO/Unicef. We looked at the years 2015 and 2020, compared the progress between those two years on ‘(At Least) Basic service’ level of Sanitation, and ‘Safely Managed service’ level of Sanitation. Based on that progress we calculated the year that all people in a country or region would be estimated to have access to at least a basic level of sanitation.  
  • In the same way, WaterAid calculated the progress on ‘Open Defecation’.  
  • Where numbers for Africa are mentioned, they are averaged – some countries will take longer than the average.  
  • Basic level of Sanitation is defined as ‘the use of improved facilities which are not shared with other households’.  
  • Safely Managed service level of Sanitation is defined as Use of improved facilities that are not shared with other households and where excreta are safely disposed of in situ or removed and treated offsite. 
  • Open Defecation-sanitation is the ‘disposal of human faeces in fields, forests, bushes, open bodies of water, beaches and other open spaces or with solid waste’ 

WaterAid is working to make clean water, decent toilets and good hygiene normal for everyone, everywhere within a generation. The international not-for-profit organisation works in 28 countries to change the lives of the poorest and most marginalised people. Since 1981, WaterAid has reached 28 million people with clean water and nearly 29 million people with decent toilets. 

For more information, visit our website wateraid.org/uk, follow us on Twitter @WaterAidPress, @WaterAidUK, @WaterAid, or find us on Facebook, LinkedIn or Instagram

  • 771 million people in the world – one in ten – do not have clean water close to home[1]. 
  • Almost 1.7 billion people in the world – more than one in five – do not have a decent toilet of their own[2]. 
  • Over 300,000 children under five die every year from diarrhoeal diseases caused by poor water and sanitation. That's more than 800 children a day, or one child every two minutes[3]. 
  • Investing in safely managed water, sanitation and hygiene services provides up to 21 times more value than it costs[4]. 
  • [1] WHO/UNICEF (2021) Progress on household drinking water, sanitation and hygiene 2000-2020. Joint Monitoring Programme. Geneva: World Health Organisation. 
  • [2] WHO/UNICEF (2021) Progress on household drinking water, sanitation and hygiene 2000-2020. Joint Monitoring Programme. Geneva: World Health Organisation. 
  • [3] WaterAid calculations based on: Prüss-Ustün A, et al. (2019). Burden of Disease from Inadequate Water, Sanitation and Hygiene for Selected Adverse Health Outcomes: An Updated Analysis with a Focus on Low- and Middle-Income Countries. International Journal of Hygiene and Environmental Health. vol 222, no 5, pp 765-777. AND The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (2020) Global Burden of Disease Study 2019. Seattle, WA: University of Washington. 
  • [4] WaterAid. (2021) Mission-critical: Invest in water, sanitation and hygiene for a healthy and green economic recovery.