Water, sanitation and hygiene

Plan helps communities to build thousands of hygienic toilets every year

More than 2,200,000 children die every year - that is 4 every minute - as a result of diarrhoea caused by poor sanitation and hygiene.

Billions of people lack access to basic sanitation and are forced to defecate in the open or to use medieval-style toilets that do little to prevent the spread of disease. 

Water and sanitation is one of Plan's core programme areas. Plan works with communities to provide safe drinking water, all forms of waste management, pest control and training on food hygiene.

Every year Plan helps communities build 2,000 school latrines and in the last 4 years, has helped families and communities build a further 200,000 toilets, benefiting several million people.

Radical approach

Plan is boosting its efforts to stop open defecation in the communities it works in throughout 2008 – the United Nations International Year of Sanitation.

In Asia and East and Southern Africa, Plan is pioneering a radical new approach – Community-Led Total Sanitation (CLTS), which educates communities about the importance of sanitation and helps them to construct and maintain their own latrines.

They also gain the confidence to enforce a total ban on open defecation.

Learn more about Plan’s Community-Led Total Sanitation programme

Visit the UN International Year of Sanitation website

Making a difference