Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Topics / Water, Sanitation, & Hygiene

About 2.6 billion people use unsafe toilets or defecate in the open.  Poor sanitation causes severe diarrhea, which kills 1.5 million children each year.  Smart investments in sanitation can reduce disease, increase family incomes, keep girls in school, help preserve the environment, and enhance human dignity.

Learn more below and visit the program page for more details about our work in this area.

 

A Field Visit to the Kuna Territory in Mesoamerica

Jeff Raikes and Wolfgang Munar visit the communities of Carti and Wichub-Huala, in the San Blas Islands archipelago, an autonomous territory of the Kuna Peoples.

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Cookie Monster -- The Ultimate Impatient Optimist

Cookie Monster talks about his very important cookie eating ritual.

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Safe Water and Toilets: The Foundation for Empowering Women

What would your life be like if you had to walk 3.7 miles each day for water and wait for the cover of darkness to relieve yourself? This is today’s reality for millions of women and girls in developing countries around the world.

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Mom Bloggers on Seeing the Global Water Crisis Up Front

Four mom bloggers have seen the global water crisis up front and are speaking out about the importance of working on a world scale to provide more access to safe drinking water and proper sanitation.

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A Nigerian in India: When Sanitation Issues Collide

Nearly 60 per cent of those practising open defecation worldwide, according to a report by UNICEF, live in India. Only one-third of households have access to sanitation, while about 626 million people (five times the size of Nigeria and about twice the size of the US) still defecate in the open.

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