Publication: Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene
Loading...
Date
2003-11
ISSN
Published
2003-11
Author(s)
Editor(s)
Abstract
Better hygiene and access to drinking water and sanitation will accelerate progress toward two millennium development goals (MDGs): 'reduce under-five child mortality rate by 2/3 between 1990 and 2015' and "by 2015 halve the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation". Meeting the latter goal will require infrastructure investments of about US$23 billion per year, to improve water services for 1.5 billion more people (292,000 people per day) and access to safe sanitation for 2.2 billion additional people (397,000 per day). Water supply, sanitation, and hygiene are about more than health. Saved time, particularly for women and children, is a major benefit. Beneficiaries of water and sanitation projects in India reported these benefits: less tension/conflict in homes and communities; community unity, self-esteem, women's empowerment (less harassment) and improved school attendance (Water Aid 2001). Improved hygiene (hand washing) and sanitation (latrines) have more impact than drinking water quality on health outcomes, specifically reductions in diarrhea, parasitic infections, morbidity and mortality, and increases in child growth (Esrey et al 1991; Hutley et al 1997). Most endemic diarrhea is not water-borne, but transmitted from person to person by poor hygiene practices, so an increase in the quantity of water has a greater health impact than improved water quality because it makes it possible (or at least more feasible) for people to adopt safe hygiene behaviors (Esrey et al 1996).
Link to Data Set
Citation
“World Bank. 2003. Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene. at a glance. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/9715 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication Economic Impacts of Inadequate Sanitation in Bangladesh(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2012-01)This study estimates the nonmonetary, financial, and economic costs of poor sanitation in the areas of health, drinking water, and domestic water, as well as user preference and welfare. Financial costs refer to the direct financial expense paid in monetary terms by someone, such as changes in household and government spending and real income losses for households. Nonmonetary costs consist of both longer-term financial impacts (such as less educated children, fewer children, and loss of working people due to premature death or relevant morbidity), and nonfinancial implications, such as the value of loss of life, time-use of adults and children, and intangible impacts. Bangladesh has made inadequate progress toward the sanitation-related millennium development goal (MDG) target. The country's financial commitment and political priority for sanitation also has shown inadequate progress (Water-Aid, 2008). Therefore, to mitigate the adverse effects of poor sanitation and hygiene practices, intervention is necessary. The aim of this study is to provide concrete evidence of the impact poor sanitation has on the population and the environment and, consequently, on the economy. This study provides estimates of the current and long-term effects of poor sanitation, which cover not only the negative impacts of poor sanitation but also the potential gains that different sanitation interventions could achieve. Policy makers and water and sanitation advocacy organizations are the target audience of this study.Publication Uganda - Environmental Sanitation : Addressing Institutional and Financial Challenges(World Bank, 2010-02-01)Over the past 10 years the government of Uganda has endeavored to increase latrine coverage and promote hygiene with a view to improving health outcomes. In 1997, in the Kampala declaration for sanitation, leaders from all of Uganda's districts pledged to improve sanitation. Then in 2001, three ministries, the Ministry of Water, Lands, and Environment; the Ministry of Education and Sports; and the Ministry of Health, signed a memorandum of understanding to clarify institutional responsibilities with respect to sanitation and hygiene and to improve implementation at the district and local levels. The three ministries agreed to put in place institutional arrangements to prioritize resources for excreta-related sanitation and hygiene programs. Although the main focus of this report is on excreta-related sanitation and hygiene, the 2006 joint sector review for water and sanitation also requested clarification of existing mandates for two specific aspects of environmental sanitation, namely solid waste management and drainage and asked whether these two issues should be included in the memorandum. Accordingly, this report also explores the institutional issues linked with municipal solid waste management and urban drainage. Because of limitations of time and scope, it examines these particular issues only in Kampala.Publication A Randomized, Controlled Study of a Rural Sanitation Behavior Change Program in Madhya Pradesh, India(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2013-11)Poor sanitation and open defecation are thought to be a major cause of diarrhea and intestinal parasite infections among young children. In 1999, India launched the Total Sanitation Campaign with the goal of achieving universal toilet coverage in rural India by 2012. This paper reports on a cluster-randomized, controlled trial that was conducted in 80 rural villages in Madhya Pradesh to measure the effect of the program on toilet access, sanitation behavior, and child health outcomes. The study analyzed a random sample of 3,039 households and 5,206 children under five years of age. Field staff collected baseline measures of sanitation conditions, behavior, and child health, and re-visited households 21 months later. The analysis finds that implementation of the program activities was slower than the original timeline (only 35 percent of villages were triggered more than six months before the follow-up survey). Nevertheless, the Total Sanitation Campaign successfully increased toilet coverage by 19 percent in intervention villages compared with control villages (41 percent v. 22 percent), while reported open defecation decreased by 10 percent among adults (74 percent v. 84 percent). The intervention also led to some improvements in water quality and protozoan infection, but consistent improvements were not observed across multiple child health outcomes (diarrhea, helminth infections, child growth). However, the exposure period was likely to have been too short to result in any benefit of the sanitation interventions on child health. Given the large improvements in toilet construction documented, an additional follow-up survey with a longer period of exposure would yield valuable information on the effects of improved sanitation conditions on health outcomes.Publication Scaling Up Rural Sanitation : Findings from the Impact Evaluation Baseline Survey in Indonesia(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2010-11)The overall purpose of the Impact Evaluation is to provide decision makers with a body of rigorous evidence on the effects of the hand washing and sanitation projects at scale on a set of relevant outcomes. It also aims to generate robust evidence on a cross-country basis, understanding how effects vary according to each country's programmatic and geographic contexts, and generate knowledge of relevant impacts such as child cognitive development, child growth (anthropometric) measures, anemia, acute lower respiratory disease, and productivity of mother's time, among many others. The studies will provide a better understanding of at-scale sanitation and hygiene interventions. The improved evidence will support development of large-scale policies and programs, and will inform donors and policy makers on the effectiveness and potential of the Global Scaling Up projects as massive interventions to meet global needs.Publication Promoting Handwashing and Sanitation : Evidence from a Large-Scale Randomized Trial in Rural Tanzania(World Bank Group, Washington, DC, 2015-01)The association between hygiene, sanitation, and health is well documented, yet thousands of children die each year from exposure to contaminated fecal matter. At the same time, evidence on the effectiveness of at-scale behavior change interventions to improve sanitation and hygiene practices is limited. This paper presents the results of two large-scale, government-led handwashing and sanitation promotion campaigns in rural Tanzania. For the campaign, 181 wards were randomly assigned to receive sanitation promotion, handwashing promotion, both interventions together, or neither. One year after the end of the program, sanitation wards increased latrine construction rates from 38.6 to 51 percent and reduced regular open defecation from 23.1 to 11.1 percent. Households in handwashing wards show marginal improvements in handwashing behavior related to food preparation, but not at other critical junctures. Limited interaction is observed between handwashing and sanitation on intermediate outcomes: wards that received both handwashing and sanitation promotion are less likely to have feces visible around their latrine and more likely to have a handwashing station close to their latrine facility relative to individual treatment groups. Final health effects on child health measured through diarrhea, anemia, stunting, and wasting are absent in the single-intervention groups. The combined-treatment group produces statistically detectable, but biologically insignificant and inconsistent, health impacts. The results highlight the importance of focusing on intermediate outcomes of take-up and behavior change as a critical first step in large-scale programs before realizing the changes in health that sanitation and hygiene interventions aim to deliver.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication Digital Progress and Trends Report 2023(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-03-05)Digitalization is the transformational opportunity of our time. The digital sector has become a powerhouse of innovation, economic growth, and job creation. Value added in the IT services sector grew at 8 percent annually during 2000–22, nearly twice as fast as the global economy. Employment growth in IT services reached 7 percent annually, six times higher than total employment growth. The diffusion and adoption of digital technologies are just as critical as their invention. Digital uptake has accelerated since the COVID-19 pandemic, with 1.5 billion new internet users added from 2018 to 2022. The share of firms investing in digital solutions around the world has more than doubled from 2020 to 2022. Low-income countries, vulnerable populations, and small firms, however, have been falling behind, while transformative digital innovations such as artificial intelligence (AI) have been accelerating in higher-income countries. Although more than 90 percent of the population in high-income countries was online in 2022, only one in four people in low-income countries used the internet, and the speed of their connection was typically only a small fraction of that in wealthier countries. As businesses in technologically advanced countries integrate generative AI into their products and services, less than half of the businesses in many low- and middle-income countries have an internet connection. The growing digital divide is exacerbating the poverty and productivity gaps between richer and poorer economies. The Digital Progress and Trends Report series will track global digitalization progress and highlight policy trends, debates, and implications for low- and middle-income countries. The series adds to the global efforts to study the progress and trends of digitalization in two main ways: · By compiling, curating, and analyzing data from diverse sources to present a comprehensive picture of digitalization in low- and middle-income countries, including in-depth analyses on understudied topics. · By developing insights on policy opportunities, challenges, and debates and reflecting the perspectives of various stakeholders and the World Bank’s operational experiences. This report, the first in the series, aims to inform evidence-based policy making and motivate action among internal and external audiences and stakeholders. The report will bring global attention to high-performing countries that have valuable experience to share as well as to areas where efforts will need to be redoubled.Publication Is US Trade Policy Reshaping Global Supply Chains ?(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2023-11-01)This paper examines the reshaping of supply chains using detailed US 10-digit import data (tariff-line level) between 2017 and 2022. The results show that while US-China decoupling in bilateral trade is real, supply chains remain intertwined with China. Over the period, China’s share of US imports fell from 22 to 16 percent. The paper shows that the decline is due to US tariffs. US imports from China are being replaced with imports from large developing countries with revealed comparative advantage in a product. Countries replacing China tend to be deeply integrated into China’s supply chains and are experiencing faster import growth from China, especially in strategic industries. Put differently, to displace China on the export side, countries must embrace China’s supply chains. Within products, the reorientation of trade is consistent with a “China + 1” strategy, as opposed to diversified sourcing across multiple countries. There is some evidence of nearshoring, but it is exclusive to border nations, and there is no consistent evidence of reshoring. Despite the significant reshaping, China remained the top supplier of imported goods to the US in 2022.Publication Business Ready 2024(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-10-03)Business Ready (B-READY) is a new World Bank Group corporate flagship report that evaluates the business and investment climate worldwide. It replaces and improves upon the Doing Business project. B-READY provides a comprehensive data set and description of the factors that strengthen the private sector, not only by advancing the interests of individual firms but also by elevating the interests of workers, consumers, potential new enterprises, and the natural environment. This 2024 report introduces a new analytical framework that benchmarks economies based on three pillars: Regulatory Framework, Public Services, and Operational Efficiency. The analysis centers on 10 topics essential for private sector development that correspond to various stages of the life cycle of a firm. The report also offers insights into three cross-cutting themes that are relevant for modern economies: digital adoption, environmental sustainability, and gender. B-READY draws on a robust data collection process that includes specially tailored expert questionnaires and firm-level surveys. The 2024 report, which covers 50 economies, serves as the first in a series that will expand in geographical coverage and refine its methodology over time, supporting reform advocacy, policy guidance, and further analysis and research.Publication Global Economic Prospects, June 2024(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-06-11)After several years of negative shocks, global growth is expected to hold steady in 2024 and then edge up in the next couple of years, in part aided by cautious monetary policy easing as inflation gradually declines. However, economic prospects are envisaged to remain tepid, especially in the most vulnerable countries. Risks to the outlook, while more balanced, are still tilted to the downside, including the possibility of escalating geopolitical tensions, further trade fragmentation, and higher-for-longer interest rates. Natural disasters related to climate change could also hinder activity. Subdued growth prospects across many emerging market and developing economies and continued risks underscore the need for decisive policy action at the global and national levels. Global Economic Prospects is a World Bank Group Flagship Report that examines global economic developments and prospects, with a special focus on emerging market and developing economies, on a semiannual basis (in January and June). Each edition includes analytical pieces on topical policy challenges faced by these economies.Publication Global Economic Prospects, January 2025(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-01-16)Global growth is expected to hold steady at 2.7 percent in 2025-26. However, the global economy appears to be settling at a low growth rate that will be insufficient to foster sustained economic development—with the possibility of further headwinds from heightened policy uncertainty and adverse trade policy shifts, geopolitical tensions, persistent inflation, and climate-related natural disasters. Against this backdrop, emerging market and developing economies are set to enter the second quarter of the twenty-first century with per capita incomes on a trajectory that implies substantially slower catch-up toward advanced-economy living standards than they previously experienced. Without course corrections, most low-income countries are unlikely to graduate to middle-income status by the middle of the century. Policy action at both global and national levels is needed to foster a more favorable external environment, enhance macroeconomic stability, reduce structural constraints, address the effects of climate change, and thus accelerate long-term growth and development.