A new report launched by the World Health Organization (WHO) and UNICEF during World Water Week 2025 has revealed that billions of people around the world remain without access to safe water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) services, exposing vulnerable communities to disease, poverty, and deepening inequalities.
The report on Progress on Household Drinking Water and Sanitation 2000-2024: Special Focus on Inequalities, highlights that while progress has been made over the past decade, major disparities persist, particularly among people living in low-income countries, fragile contexts, rural communities, children, and minority ethnic and indigenous groups.
According to the findings, 1 in 4 people globally , 2.1 billion , still lack access to safely managed drinking water, including 106 million who rely on untreated surface water. At the same time, 3.4 billion people remain without safely managed sanitation, of whom 354 million still practice open defecation.
The report also shows that 1.7 billion people lack basic hygiene services at home, with 611 million having no facilities at all. People in least developed countries are more than twice as likely as those in other nations to lack drinking water and sanitation, and three times as likely to lack basic hygiene. In fragile contexts, access to safely managed drinking water is 38 percentage points lower than in more stable settings.
Keep up with the latest headlines on WhatsApp | LinkedIn
Although rural areas have shown improvements with drinking water access rising from 50% to 60% and hygiene coverage from 52% to 71% between 2015 and 2024 — they continue to trail behind urban areas, where progress has stagnated.
The report further reveals the disproportionate burden on women and girls. In many countries, they are primarily responsible for water collection, with families in sub-Saharan Africa and Central and Southern Asia spending more than 30 minutes a day fetching water. Adolescent girls, meanwhile, are less likely than adult women to participate in school, work, or social activities during menstruation due to inadequate access to menstrual materials.
With just five years left before the 2030 deadline for the Sustainable Development Goals, the findings stress that ending open defecation and ensuring universal access to basic water, sanitation, and hygiene services will require urgent acceleration. Achieving universal coverage of safely managed services, however, appears increasingly out of reach.
“Water, sanitation and hygiene are not privileges, they are basic human rights,” said Dr Ruediger Krech, Director a.i, Environment, Climate Change and Health at WHO. “We must accelerate action, especially for the most marginalised communities, if we are to keep our promise to reach the Sustainable Development Goals.”
Get the latest in African news delivered straight to your inbox
By submitting above, you agree to our privacy policy.
Almost finished…
We need to confirm your email address.
To complete the process, please follow the instructions in the email we just sent you.
There was a problem processing your submission. Please try again later.
UNICEF Director of WASH, Cecilia Scharp, added: “When children lack access to safe water, sanitation, and hygiene, their health, education, and futures are put at risk. At the current pace, the promise of safe water and sanitation for every child is slipping further from reach.”
Read the original article on Nile Post.
AllAfrica publishes around 500 reports a day from more than 110 news organizations and over 500 other institutions and individuals, representing a diversity of positions on every topic. We publish news and views ranging from vigorous opponents of governments to government publications and spokespersons. Publishers named above each report are responsible for their own content, which AllAfrica does not have the legal right to edit or correct.
Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica. To address comments or complaints, please Contact us.
AllAfrica is a voice of, by and about Africa – aggregating, producing and distributing 500 news and information items daily from over 110 African news organizations and our own reporters to an African and global public. We operate from Cape Town, Dakar, Abuja, Johannesburg, Nairobi and Washington DC.
Get the latest in African news delivered straight to your inbox
By submitting above, you agree to our privacy policy.
Almost finished…
We need to confirm your email address.
To complete the process, please follow the instructions in the email we just sent you.
There was a problem processing your submission. Please try again later.
source
