In communities without or with limited toilets, the practice of defecating in the open (such as in fields, bushes, or by bodies of water) becomes common thereby ravaging public health.
Exposed faecal matter contaminates food, water and the environment, and can spread serious diseases, such as cholera, typhoid, COVID-19. Coupled with poor hygiene practices, exposure to faecal matter remains a leading cause of child mortality, morbidity, malnutrition, and can negatively impact a child’s cognitive development. It can cause adult mortality as well and a breakdown in the economy as families will spend more on health care.
Open defecation is harmful to community health and well-being and can also undermine individual dignity and safety – especially for girls and women. When forced to travel greater distances from home to reach adequate hygiene facilities, girls and women are put at greater risk of violence.
EPDA’s response
EPDA is constantly working to provide safe sanitation for the most affected and hard to reach most vulnerable communities in rural and urban areas, and during emergencies.
We mobilize communities, build toilets and showers, and partner with donors and local collaborators to plan and implement sanitation services.
In emergencies, EPDA provides humanitarian relief actions to communities threatened by disrupted services and the risk of disease outbreak.
We continue to improve on the provision of sanitation technology by using leading innovations; ensuring basic toilets are affordable, accessible and safe; and finding effective, sustainable solutions for sanitation challenges that harm vulnerable communities and their inhabitants.
We create and train toilet management committees for public installed toilets.
Ending open defecation
Ongoing investment in sanitation services by households, communities and government is necessary to shift community behaviour so that ‘toilet use by all’ becomes the new norm and/or prerogative.
EPDA’s commitment to reduce open defecation is intrinsic in our strategic work in vulnerable communities in urban and rural areas.
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