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Why water and sanitation matter
Safe drinking water, hygienic toilets, and handwashing with soap prevent diarrhoea, parasitic infections, and environmental enteric disease, which are leading causes of illness and death in young children. By reducing these infections, good WASH improves children’s growth, cognitive development, and ability to attend and perform well in school.
Links to nutrition and development
Repeated diarrhoea and worms from unsafe water and poor sanitation contribute to malnutrition, stunting, and delayed physical and mental development. Studies show that interventions such as cleaner water, better toilets, and handwashing education, alone or combined with nutrition support, can improve children’s motor, social, and communication skills in the first two years of life.
Protection and dignity for children
Well-designed WASH facilities help protect children, especially girls, from violence, harassment, and exploitation by providing safe, private, age-appropriate spaces for bathing and using the toilet. Child‑sensitive WASH programs consult children, adapt facilities to their size and abilities, and ensure that collecting water or using toilets does not expose them to physical or sexual harm.
Key actions to improve WASH
Priority actions include expanding access to safely managed drinking water, ending open defecation through adequate sanitation, and promoting regular handwashing with soap in homes, schools, and health facilities. Integrating WASH with child protection, health, and education programs ensures that services both improve health and actively safeguard children’s rights and wellbeing
