A new report from the World Health Organization (WHO) and UNICEF reveals that major gaps still exist in access to water, sanitation, and hygiene services (WASH).
‘Progress on Household Drinking Water and Sanitation 2000–2024’ provides a special focus on inequalities and finds that, while there has been progress over the past decade, billions of people still lack access to WASH services creating health risks and greater social exclusion.
The report finds that people living in low-income countries, fragile contexts, rural communities, children, and minority ethnic and indigenous groups face the greatest disparities.
Key findings include that:
- Despite gains since 2015, 1 in 4 (1 billion people globally) still lack access to safely managed drinking water, including 106 million who drink directly from untreated surface sources.
- 4 billion people still lack safely managed sanitation, including 354 million who practice open defaecation.
- 7 billion people still lack basic hygiene services at home, including 611 million without access to any facilities.
- People in least developed countries are more than twice as likely as people in other countries to lack basic drinking water and sanitation services and are more than three times as likely to lack basic hygiene.
- In fragile countries safely managed drinking water coverage is 38% lower than in other countries.
- While there have been improvements for people living in rural areas, there is still a gap in service delivery. Safely managed drinking water coverage rose from 50% to 60% between 2015 and 2024, with basic hygiene rising from 52% to 71%. Meanwhile, drinking water and hygiene coverage in urban areas has stagnated.
- Data from 70 countries shows that while most women and adolescent girls have menstrual materials and a private place to change, many lack sufficient materials to change as often as needed.
- Adolescent girls aged 15-19 are less likely than adult women to participate in activities during menstruation.
- In most countries with available data, women and girls are primarily responsible for water collection, with many in sub-Saharan Africa and Central and Southern Asia spending more than 30 minutes per day collecting water.
- As we approach the last five years of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) deadline, achieving the 2030 targets for ending open defaecation and universal access to WASH services will require acceleration, while universal coverage of safely managed services appears increasingly out of reach.
