Access to safe water, adequate sanitation and good hygiene (collectively WASH) is a basic human right — and foundational to health, education, dignity and development. The WASH programme focuses on ensuring communities have the infrastructure, behaviour and systems in place to manage water, sanitation and hygiene effectively.
Core activities include:
- Improving access to safe and sufficient water for drinking, cooking, cleaning — investing in wells, boreholes, rain-water harvesting, piped systems.
- Sanitation facilities: building and improving toilets/latrines, promoting community uptake of improved sanitation, ensuring safe faecal-waste disposal.
- Hygiene promotion: hand-washing with soap, menstrual-hygiene management, safe water storage, community-based behaviour change.
- Systems strengthening: water-point maintenance, community ownership, monitoring water-quality, linking WASH to health and education sectors.
- Emergency WASH response: in displacement settings, during droughts, floods or outbreaks, water-sanitation hygiene is often the first line of defence.
One quote captures the essence, “Safe water and sanitation are the silent foundation of all other progress.”
When WASH is functioning well, children stay healthy and in school, women spend less time fetching water, illnesses decrease and productivity improves.
