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Water and sanitation are essential for life and health, but they are also essential for dignity, empowerment and prosperity. Water and sanitation are human rights, fundamental to every child and adult. But in  Aparis village, Kumi Uganda, poor sanitation and hygiene, as well as unequal access to safe drinking water, make thousands of children very sick and at risk of death.

 

Diarrhoea alone, one of three major childhood killers in Uganda, kills 33 children every day. 

In most cases, children get the disease by drinking unsafe water or coming into contact with contaminated hands — theirs or parents or caregivers — that have not been washed with soap. 

Early childhood diarrhoea is not only deadly; it also contributes to Uganda’s high levels of stunting, which in turn affects children’s cognitive development and performance at school. In school, lack of proper sanitation facilities also leads to high absenteeism and dropouts, especially for girls.

Access to improved water and sanitation facilities does not, on its own, necessarily lead to improved health. It needs another step: there is now very clear evidence showing the importance of hygienic behaviour — especially hand washing with soap after defecating and before eating or preparing food — to health improvement. 

Another key to reducing childhood illness and death is to stop using open fields or the bush as toilets. In Uganda, nearly a tenth of the population practices open defecation, and two thirds of households do not wash with soap. 

It is poor people who carry the greatest burden of poor sanitation. The poorest 20 percent of the population is 13.5 times more likely to defecate in the open than the wealthiest 20 percent, according to the World Bank.

As of late 2025, 1 in 4 people globally (2.1 billion) lack safely managed drinking water, with poor populations in rural areas and fragile contexts most affected. Lack of access to clean water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) services causes millions of deaths from waterborne diseases, disproportionately affecting children under five. Urgent, targeted investment is needed to achieve SDG 6. 

Key Findings on Safe Water Access

The Scale of Poverty: 106 million people drink directly from untreated surface sources. People in least-developed countries are more than three times more likely to lack basic hygiene services than others.

Health Crisis: Contaminated water causes over 1 million deaths annually. Hundreds of children under 5 die daily from diarrhoeal diseases linked to unsafe water, sanitation, and hygiene.

Inequality and Fragility: Water scarcity is worsened by climate change, including floods and droughts. Safe water access is 38 percentage points lower in fragile, conflict-ridden settings.

Gender and Poverty: Women and girls are often responsible for gathering water and face significant hurdles with menstrual hygiene. 

Key Recommendations and Solutions

Tailored Interventions: Tailoring water services for specific, underserved groups (such as in low-income urban settlements) is crucial to ensure affordability and access.

Community-Based Management: Projects like those by World Vision highlight the importance of engaging local communities in building and maintaining water infrastructure, such as wells and hand-washing stations.

Improve Wastewater Management: Using treated, safe waste-water and sewage sludge in a circular economy can provide water and nutrients for food in impoverished areas.

Prioritize Climate Resiliency: Investing in water solutions that can withstand climate-related extremes like floods and droughts is critical.

Prioritize Hygiene: Access to soap and handwashing facilities is as critical for preventing disease as the water source itself. 

If current trends continue, about 1.6 billion people will still lack safely managed drinking water at home by 2030, according to WHO/UNICEF projections. 

Conclusion

In Aparis village,. Lack of access to safe water and sanitation is particularly harmful in childhood,. Inadequate and unsafe water affects early childhood development, and time spent fetching water, inadequate sanitation and hygiene and droughts or floods disrupt learning and lead to school dropouts.

School attendance and economic welfare. Developing countries disproportionately rely on water-dependent sectors, particularly agriculture, for employment. Globally, over 800 million people are at high-risk of droughts and twice as many live in flood-risk hotspots

Despite progress over the last decade, billions of people around the world still lack access to essential water, sanitation, and hygiene services, putting them at risk of disease and deeper social exclusion.

A new report: Progress on Household Drinking Water and Sanitation 2024: special focus on inequalities – reveals that, while some progress has been made, major gaps persist. People living in low-income countries, fragile contexts, rural communities, children, and minority ethnic and indigenous groups face the greatest disparities.

Ten key facts from the report: Global Outlook!

Despite gains since 2015, 1 in 4 – or 2.1 billion people globally – still lack access to safely managed drinking water*, including 106 million who drink directly from untreated surface sources.

3.4 billion people still lack safely managed sanitation, including 354 million who practice open defecation.

1.7 billion people still lack basic hygiene services at home, including 611 million without access to any facilities.

People in least developed countries are more than twice as likely as people in other countries to lack basic drinking water and sanitation services, and more than three times as likely to lack basic hygiene.

In Kumi Uganda, Aparis Village in particular safely managed drinking water coverage is 38 percentage points lower than in other counties in urban , highlighting stark inequalities.

While there have been improvements for people living in rural areas, they still lag behind. Safely managed drinking water coverage rose from 50 per cent to 60 per cent between 2015 and 2024, and basic hygiene coverage from 52 per cent to 71 per cent. In contrast, drinking water and hygiene coverage in urban areas has stagnated.

Data from our field reports show that while most women and adolescent girls have menstrual materials and a private place to change, many lack sufficient materials to change as often as needed.

Adolescent girls aged 15–19 are less likely than adult women to participate in activities during menstruation, such as school, work and social pastimes.

In Aparis Village, women and girls are primarily responsible for water collection, with many in sub-Saharan Africa and Central and Southern Asia spending more than 30 minutes per day collecting water.

As we approach the last five years of the Sustainable Development Goals period, achieving the 2030 targets for ending open defecation and universal access to basic water, sanitation and hygiene services will require acceleration, while universal coverage of safely managed services 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, World Health Organization. “We must accelerate action, especially for the most marginalized communities, if we are to keep our promise to reach the Sustainable Development Goals.”

“When children lack access to safe water, sanitation, and hygiene, their health, education, and futures are put at risk,” said Cecilia Scharp, UNICEF Director of WASH.

 “These inequalities are especially stark for girls, who often bear the burden of water collection and face additional barriers during menstruation. At the current pace, the promise of safe water and sanitation for every child is slipping further from reach – reminding us that we must act faster and more boldly to reach those who need it most.”