“We must focus not only on the classrooms but also on the washrooms”.
This is the message that Norbert Barthle, Parliamentary State Secretary of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) gave urging countries to address needs on water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) in schools (WinS) provided that:
- 30% of schools worldwide do not provide basic drinking water;
- A third of all schools do not have basic sanitation facilities; and
- Nearly 900 million children go to schools without handwashing facilities with water and soap.
As children spend a huge portion of their day in school, their basic needs for WASH are pre-requisites for human dignity and learning. The Sustainable Development Goals has brought forth attention towards WinS, making it part of two (2) goals: SDG 6 on Water and Sanitation and SDG 4 on Quality Education.
Among the possibilities in this age of information, using data to trigger action can be key to taking WinS to scale. This focus is highlighted in the Sustainable Sanitation Alliance’s “Making WASH in Schools more Sustainable Volume III: Best Practices from SuSanA Partners.” The publication features two case examples on digital approaches to Monitoring & Evaluation to trigger WinS improvements – one from India and, another, from the Philippines.
Read the Philippine and Indian experiences on monitoring WinS at this link: https://www.susana.org/en/knowledge-hub/resources-and-publications/library/details/3680