WASH beyond the household

Published on: 02/06/2013

Currently the MDG targets for drinking water and sanitation only considers access for households and not settings beyond the household. "Extra-household settings" refers to other areas outside the home e.g.:

• High use areas: schools, workplaces, transit hubs, markets
• High risk areas: health facilities, prisons, refugee camps, internally displaced persons (IDP) camps
• Special events: mass gatherings (e.g. sporting events, religious events)

Monitoring in extra-household settings clearly poses a number of challenges in terms of aggregation and standardization at international level. Currently there is no monitoring taking place at this level. Aggregation at this level will require using data from a variety of sources that range in terms of quality and sampling approach. Further, there is often a lack of indicator harmonization between countries. Countries often measure indicators against different standards set for different settings. Indicators need to be selected that are simple, easy to collect, and understandable to a lay person as noted by the University of North Carolina who are currently focusing on this issue as well.

We had an interesting session in the "IRC Symposium 2013: Monitoring Sustainable WASH Service Delivery" held in Addis Ababa in which we discussed this issue (read the blog posts by Jolly Ann Maulit andAndrés HuesoGonzález). As a "knowledge-focused NGO", we at IRC would like to bring this topic to light. We would love to hear what others are doing in this area and focus a bit more on the pragmatic (but not necessarily straight forward) ways that we can start to deal with this issue.

Last week, the UN High-Level Panel of Eminent Persons on the Post-2015 Development Agenda published their final report. In the report under Goal 6: Achieve Universal Access to Water and Sanitation (by 2030), they include extra-households settings in the first two targets:

• Provide universal access to safe drinking water at home and in schools, health centers and refugee camps
• End open defecation and ensure universal access to sanitation at school and work, and increase access to sanitation at home by x%

The ultimate aim around this area is that we would like to propose that by 2030, everyone uses basic water supply and handwashing facilities at home, all schools and health care centers provide all users with basic water supply and adequate sanitation, handwashing facilities and menstrual hygiene facilities, and inequalities in access to all these services have been progressively reduced. What are your thoughts? Look forward to hearing from you.

Please see the link below to download the final report.