World Toilet Day 2024: Accelerating #SanitAction for Peace, Protection and Progress

An elderly Cambodian woman stands in front of her accessible Sky Latrine, which enables her household to access a safe toilet all year round in their seasonally flooded Kampong Plouk commune, Siem Reap.

Ms Am Roeun, who lives along the Tonle Sap Lake in Kampong Plouk commune, waited 73 years to have her own toilet. When she learnt about the affordable and climate-resilient Sky Latrine — an elevated latrine designed for seasonally flooded communities — she decided it was time to purchase the first-ever toilet for her IDPoor household (iDE / Kimlong Meng)

Toilets: A place for peace

Did you know that on this 24th World Toilet Day, billions of people globally still don’t have a safe place to go to the toilet? This year’s theme, ‘Toilets – A place for peace,’ underscores the centrality of safe sanitation in creating a peaceful and climate-resilient future for all.

Toilets should be a place for peace – a secure space for personal hygiene and sanitation, a place that protects privacy, dignity, health, well-being, and the environment, and importantly, enables progress. But for 3.5 billion people globally – about two in five – this is not their reality.

‘Safe toilets for all by 2030’ is one of the targets of Sustainable Development Goal 6 (SDG6) but is severely off track. About 1.5 billion people still don’t have even basic sanitation services, such as a private toilet or latrine, including 419 million who have no choice but to practise open defecation – relieving themselves in areas like bodies of water, vegetation, and street gutters.

Unsafe sanitation systems and practices pose serious health risks for people and the planet, contaminating water sources, lands used for food production, and wider ecosystems, spreading deadly diseases like cholera and diarrhoea, and leading to malnutrition, stunting and the deaths of 1,000 children every day. Sadly, those who can least afford it pay the highest price for a lack of access to safe water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) resources.

Toilets: A place for protection

Toilets should be a place for protection – but while this stark sanitation gap persists between the Global North and South, a cycle of poverty and inequality is perpetuated within underserved, marginalised and vulnerable communities. These communities are also among the worst affected by the impacts of climate change, and with the least power and resources to adapt and respond. Climate change is exacerbating inequities, stoking division and conflict, undermining hard-won development gains and threatening peace and security.

Throughout the world, particularly for women, girls, sexual and gender minorities, and people living with disabilities, having access to a safe toilet provides a multiplier effect. It is the difference between being able to attend school or work, to undertake training, academic and skills development, to participate in social activities, and pursue leadership and other opportunities – or not. Furthermore, safe and hygienic toilets are critical for healthcare facilities to be able to deliver quality patient care and protect frontline workers. A safe toilet enables equitable healthcare and access to educational, social, economic and political opportunities. All these factors underpin peaceful and prosperous societies.

Toilets: A place for progress

Toilets are essential for progress – safely and sustainably managed sanitation systems pave the way for innovative climate solutions and new and emerging circular economy prospects. As the Climate Resilient Sanitation Coalition (CRSC) explains in their latest Insight released ahead of COP29, these largely untapped opportunities include:

Biogas capture, reducing methane and nitrous oxide emissions from wastewater – both greenhouse gases – and converting waste into a renewable energy source.
Wastewater recycling for industrial and agricultural reuse, reducing reliance on freshwater supplies and minimising discharge.
Bio-solids treatment, turning sewerage into high-grade agricultural fertiliser that also sequesters carbon and replaces traditional (non-renewable) phosphate, nitrogen-based and chemical products.

These are but some examples of the current and prospective opportunities of safely managed sanitation in progressing SDG6 and limiting global warming to 1.5 ℃ under the Paris Agreement, while also contributing to other sustainable development targets.

Stick with sanitation

This animation illustrates how investing in safely managed sanitation is taking climate action.

To promote these opportunities, the CRSC collaborated to develop Annex III - Practical guidelines for designing climate-resilient sanitation projects for the Green Climate Fund’s Sectoral guide: Water security. Launched at COP29, the Annex provides additional, specific, context and guidance for applying the guidelines to climate-resilient sanitation projects and programs, and illustrates the growing recognition of the role it plays in climate change adaptation, mitigation, and resilience building.

Ensuring access to climate-resilient sanitation services for 3.6 billion people by 2030: A call to action for acceleration

Read the CRSC's Call to Action

For the past seven years, Water for Women partners have been supporting crucial advancements in WASH within underserved, marginalised, rural and remote communities in 16 Asia-Pacific countries. As a member of the CRSC, we continue to call for accelerated #SanitAction globally to deliver equitable access to WASH for all at all times — to protect human and environmental health, and to harness the power of safe sanitation for climate-resilient communities and climate action.

You can explore some of our latest partner and project updates from across the region below.

Explore recent updates

A blue SNV graphic with the words ' What additional public health factors should be considered beyond global sanitation indicators?

Researching beyond sanitation indicators

Partners SNV and the University of Technology, Sydney - Institute for Sustainable Futures published important analysis in NPJ Clean Water that explores the complexities of developing and designing global indicators, particularly concerning safely managed sanitation under SDG target 6.2.

Their team reviewed data from nearly 32,000 households across Africa and Asia, uncovering valuable insights into the reliability of various sanitation indicators.

School children in PNG wearing white and blue uniforms jump up happily in front of their toilet block

Photo: WaterAid / Tariq Hawari

WaterAid calls on governments, donors and the international community to prioritise investment in climate-resilient sanitation infrastructure in the Pacific

WaterAid Australia Chief Executive, Tom Muller writes: The Pacific Islands collectively account for less than 0.03% of global greenhouse gas emissions, yet they are among the most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.

WaterAid is working to influence communities, governments and partners across the Pacific to ensure that everyone has access to climate-resilient sanitation.

Their recent report, Healthy Environments, Resilient Communities: The Vital Role of Sanitation in Improving Climate Resilience in the Pacific, highlights the importance of integrating climate resilience into sanitation planning. Focusing on designing systems that are flexible and can withstand climate shocks, from floods to droughts, so that no one is left without access to a toilet or clean water.

A woman in a red sari and head scarf walking by six back-to-back concrete toilet cubicles in an outdoor urban environment in Jaipur, India. The wide, green-coloured door of one cubicle can be seen to the right and green railing along the walkway in the foreground, which leads to a ramp at the left and steps at the right. They are community toilets that are gender-inclusive, accessible and safely managed.

Sanitation entreprenuers Ms Thitsamai Nonpasith from Lao PDR (left) and Ms Hat Tin from Cambodia (right) are passionate about their roles, even in a sector dominated by men (iDE / Clare Meyer)

The power of peer learning

In early 2024, iDE Cambodia hosted the SNV Lao PDR WASH team, latrine business owners, and local government to share experience and expertise on market-based sanitation for resilient and sustainable WASH systems and lasting impact.

This learning exchange was more than a knowledge sharing event — it strengthened partnerships and inspired both teams with fresh perspectives and innovative ideas. Ms Hat Tin shared: “ I could connect with people across countries and across cultures [through this learning exchange]. We have the same goals and will continue to improve sanitation in our countries.”

Sanitation marketing scale-up in Cambodia

iDE Cambodia have successfully completed implementation of the flagship market-based sanitation program, known as Sanitation Market Scale-Up (SMSU). Rolled out across seven provinces, the program facilitated the installation of more than 410,000 latrines, delivering access to improved sanitation for one in five rural Cambodian households. In the areas where iDE worked, sustainable rural sanitation coverage increased from 23 percent in 2009 to over 88 percent in 2022. With these improvements to sanitation coverage, the program has powered Cambodian sanitation businesses to promote healthier and more dignified lives for rural Cambodians.

Water for Women is proud to have supported this innovative program.

A man and woman stand on either side of a door to an outdoor latrine at their home Champhone District, Lao PDR. They are pointing to the high water line left on the timber door as a result of previous flooding.

A climate-resilient, inclusive sanitation story from Bhubaneswar

WATCH: The Centre for Advocacy and Research is supporting climate-resilient, gender responsive and socially inclusive WASH services in 215 informal settlements of Bhubaneswar and Jaipur. This story shares the process and outcomes of their work in India.

A happy group of Papua New Guineans celebrate their village, Matta, being declared open defecation free

In a historic moment for the Matta Community in Western Province, Papua New Guinea, celebrations were in full swing as the first of 10 communities to be declared Open Defecation Free (ODF).

Supported by World Vision through their Water for Women WASH Voices for Empowerment project (WAVE 2) and the PNG-Australia Partnership, Matta community is extremely proud of this achievement.

World Vision’s project officer, Rodney Bill, reflected on the journey to ODF: " ... The initial stages of implementation are the hardest, because sometimes the community can be reluctant to the change in their daily life in terms of water, sanitation and hygiene practices... But due to the approach we took on board with us under the WASH program, which is the Community Led Total Sanitation (CLTS), it was through this approach that we were able to change the behavior of the community, break down the barriers, and we helped them to understand the negative impacts of open defecation in Matta."

World Toilet Day has been an annual United Nations Observance since 2013. It was first celebrated in 2001 by the World Toilet Organization.

World Toilet Day is held every year on 19 November to celebrate the power of safe sanitation and raise awareness of the billions of people worldwide who are still living without it, and to accelerate #SanitAction to urgently address this deficit.

We must take action to tackle the global sanitation crisis to achieve water and sanitation for all and create thriving, peaceful and climate-resilient communities.