Good water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) services protect health and the environment. Such services are particularly important in schools to instill lifelong proper hygiene habits in children and provide them access to the requisite facilities. Many schools in Mongolia face significant challenges in improving WASH due to physical and demographic conditions. The country’s harsh winters require sustainable WASH facilities that can withstand extended periods of below-freezing temperatures. This publication provides essential information for national and local administrators, engineers, field practitioners, and policy makers to plan, implement, and manage improved WASH in schools, particularly in small and isolated rural settlements. It covers WASH standards and norms, design and technology options, operation and maintenance, hygiene education approaches, and cost estimation.
"Diseases related to inadequate water, sanitation and hygiene are a huge burden in developing countries. It is estimated that 88% of diarrhoeal disease is caused by unsafe water supply, and inadequate sanitation and hygiene (WHO, 2004c). Many schools serve communities that have a high prevalence of diseases related to inadequate water supply, sanitation and hygiene, and where child malnutrition and other underlying health problems are common. Schools, particularly those in rural areas, often completely lack drinking-water and sanitation and handwashing facilities; alternatively, where such facilities do exist they are often inadequate in both quality and quantity. Schools with poor water, sanitation and hygiene conditions, and intense levels of person-to-person contact, are high-risk environments for children and staff, and exacerbate children's particular susceptibility to environmental health hazards. Children's ability to learn may be affected by inadequate water, sanitation and hygiene conditions in several ways. These include helminth infections (which affect hundreds of millions of school-age children), long-term exposure to chemical contaminants in water (e.g. lead and arsenic), diarrhoeal diseases and malaria infections, all of which force many schoolchildren to be absent from school. Poor environmental conditions in the classroom can also make both teaching and learning very difficult. Girls and boys are likely to be affected in different ways by inadequate water, sanitation and hygiene conditions in schools, and this may contribute to unequal learning opportunities. Sometimes, girls and female teachers are more affected than boys because the lack of sanitary facilities means that they cannot attend school during menstruation. The international policy environment increasingly reflects these issues. Providing adequate levels of water supply, sanitation and hygiene in schools is of direct relevance to the United Nations (UN) Millennium Development Goals of achieving universal primary education, promoting gender equality and reducing child mortality. It is also supportive of other goals, especially those on major diseases and infant mortality." - p. iii
The new 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development includes water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) at its core. A dedicated Sustainable Development Goal (SDG 6) declares a commitment to "ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all." Monitoring progress toward this goal will be challenging: direct measures of water and sanitation service quality and use are either expensive or elusive. However, reliance on household surveys poses limitations and likely overstated progress during the Millennium Development Goal period. In Innovations in WASH Impact Measures: Water and Sanitation Measurement Technologies and Practices to Inform the Sustainable Development Goals, we review the landscape of proven and emerging technologies, methods, and approaches that can support and improve on the WASH indicators proposed for SDG target 6.1, "by 2030, achieve universal and equitable access to safe and affordable drinking water for all," and target 6.2, "by 2030, achieve access to adequate and equitable sanitation and hygiene for all and end open defecation, paying special attention to the needs of women and girls and those in vulnerable situations." Although some of these technologies and methods are readily available, other promising approaches require further field evaluation and cost reductions. Emergent technologies, methods, and data-sharing platforms are increasingly aligned with program impact monitoring. Improved monitoring of water and sanitation interventions may allow more cost-effective and measurable results. In many cases, technologies and methods allow more complete and impartial data in time to allow program improvements. Of the myriad monitoring and evaluation methods, each has its own advantages and limitations. Surveys, ethnographies, and direct observation give context to more continuous and objective electronic sensor data. Overall, combined methodologies can provide a more comprehensive and instructive depiction of WASH usage and help the international development community measure our progress toward reaching the SDG WASH goals.
Global health is a rapidly emerging discipline with a transformative potential for public policy and international development. Emphasizing transnational health issues, global health aims to improve health and achieve health equity for all people worldwide. Its multidisciplinary scope includes contributions from many disciplines within and beyond the health sciences, including clinical medicine, public health, social and behavioral sciences, environmental sciences, economics, public policy, law and ethics. This large reference offers up-to-date information and expertise across all aspects of global health and helps readers to achieve a truly multidisciplinary understanding of the topics, trends as well as the clinical, socioeconomic and environmental drivers impacting global health. As a fully comprehensive, state-of-the-art and continuously updated, living reference, the Handbook of Global Health is an important, dynamic resource to provide context for global health clinical care, organizational decision-making, and overall public policy on many levels. Health workers, physicians, economists, environmental and social scientists, trainees and medical students as well as professionals and practitioners will find this handbook of great value.
This Child-Friendly Schools (CFS) Manual was developed during three-and-a-half years of continuous work, involving the United Nations Children's Fund education staff and specialists from partner agencies working on quality education. It benefits from fieldwork in 155 countries and territories, evaluations carried out by the Regional Offices and desk reviews conducted by headquarters in New York. The manual is a part of a total resource package that includes an e-learning package for capacity-building in the use of CFS models and a collection of field case studies to illustrate the state of the art in child-friendly schools in a variety of settings.
The approach of Water, Sanitation and Hygiene in Humanitarian Contexts is straightforward and practical, with little theory - the focus being on improving professional practice in the midst of humanitarian suffering; written for those whose everyday work involves humanitarian response to WASH needs in emergencies and disasters.
This volume describes the methods used in the surveillance of drinking water quality in the light of the special problems of small-community supplies, particularly in developing countries, and outlines the strategies necessary to ensure that surveillance is effective.
