Feature

Six actionable strategies for World Toilet Day 2023

According to WHO and UNICEF, nearly half of the global population lacks safely managed sanitation, a recognized human right. As World Toilet Day approaches on 19 November 2023, SEI highlights six actionable strategies to help achieve universal clean water and safe sanitation access.

Maria Sköld / Published on 15 November 2023

A yellow plastic at a rural latrine mounted on a stack of bricks. — A gallon jug that has been repurposed as a hand washing facility in a rural latrine in Mozambique.

Photo: Ivan Bruno / Getty Images.

This year’s World Toilet Day theme “Accelerate Change”, serves as a reminder that the world is not on track to meet Sustainable Development Goal 6 on clean water and sanitation for all by 2030. A UN report warns that, without significant ambition increases, three billion people will still be without safely managed sanitation in 2030.

SEI contributes to this effort with research on effective water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) approaches.

WASH services can play a critical role for food security, poverty reduction and gender equality. But they must be designed wisely, and our research explores how best to create enabling environments and effective strategies. If we are serious about accelerating change, it is critical that decisions build on scientific knowledge about what really works.

Biljana Macura, SEI Sanitation and Health Team Lead

Ahead of World Toilet Day, Macura highlights SEI’s tools and frameworks, accessible via the sanitation and health team’s tools page. The team is also actively developing effective new collaborative approaches.

Here are six practical and implementable strategies based on SEI research for decision makers:

Empower marginalized communities through co-created citizen science. In collaboration with Mexican NGO El Caracol, SEI has worked to enhance access to water and sanitation for Mexico City’s homeless. Read about citizen science and WASH in our Q&A.
Enhance agricultural productivity using animal and human waste. The Clean and Green framework, designed for rural productive sanitation, tackles a wide range of health risks and facilitates the safe reuse of waste in rural and agricultural settings. Learn how Clean and Green is implemented.
Recover energy, water and nutrients from urban waste streams. REVAMP, a decision–support tool, allows cities to assess the potential for resource recovery from their waste. Explore REVAMP here.
Leverage scientific knowledge to recover resources from waste. Keeping up with rapid advancements in waste-to-resource research is challenging for decision makers. EGESTABASE is an online platform that aggregates scientific evidence on nutrient recovery from human excreta and municipal wastewater for agricultural use. Find out more about EGESTABASE here.
Bolster gender equality and social inclusion in WASH interventions. SEI’s research has yielded the most comprehensive overview of research on gender and WASH. The Empowerment in WASH Index (EWI) aids in designing more inclusive policies and interventions. Read more about EWI.
Factor the impact of water and sanitation at household level into watershed management. WASH-Flows is an innovative tool that gathers data on WASH services at community and household level, assessing their effect on water balance and quality in watersheds. This tool addresses a critical need and contributes to more sustainable, resilient and equitable water and sanitation investments. Learn more about WASH-Flows.

Biljana Macura concludes, “It is of course worrying that the world is not on track to achieve SDG6 about water and sanitation for all by 2030, but the situation is not hopeless. By making better use of existing research and decision support tools based on scientific evidence, we can design better and more inclusive WASH services.”