This year, GRAN will be focusing our advocacy efforts on improving global access to water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH).
The United Nations has declared access to clean water and sanitation a human right, fundamental to health, dignity and prosperity, and essential to the realization of all other rights.
These basic human rights are addressed in Sustainable Development Goal #6: Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all. Among the specific targets of this goal are:
- Achieve universal and equitable access to safe and affordable drinking water for all; and
- 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.
Despite the world acknowledging what needs to happen, we are not close to meeting this Sustainable Development goal by 2030. Lack of sustainable and safe water, sanitation, and hygiene remains one of the greatest global challenges.
Around the world, 700 million people still don’t have even basic access to water close to home, 1.5 billion don’t have basic sanitation (i.e. toilets), and 1.7 billion don’t have basic hygiene facilities to stay healthy and keep diseases from spreading.1
According to the latest estimates from the World Health Organization (WHO), 1.4 million people die each year as a result of inadequate drinking-water, sanitation and hygiene.2 These deaths are preventable.
What is needed?
Investments in infrastructure and sanitation facilities, protection and restoration of water-related ecosystems, and hygiene education are among the steps necessary to fulfill this human right for all.
GRAN advocacy in 2026
WASH is a new focus for GRAN, but it is also something we have come across in every other campaign we have taken on. This critical issue has “knocked at our door” over and over again. The time has come to give it priority in our advocacy.
- In our work on Health, we know that contaminated water and poor sanitation are linked to the spread of diseases such as cholera, diarrhea, dysentery, hepatitis A, typhoid, and polio. And hospitals in the Global South operating without handwashing or sterilization facilities can’t control the spread of infection or take basic precautions to protect mother and child during labour and delivery.
- In our work on Access to Education, we know that girls miss many days of classes or drop out altogether if their schools have no toilets or handwashing facilities to support proper menstrual hygiene. Schools without sanitation and hygiene facilities find it difficult to recruit teachers.
- In our work on Ending Violence against Women, we know that women and girls are vulnerable to gender-based violence during long isolated walks to collect water or even short walks to find a private place to urinate or defecate if their homes have no toilets.
- In our work on the Right to Food we know that access to sources of clean water is essential for small-scale farmers to grow their crops and keep their food free from contamination.
- In our work on Child Hunger, we learned that repeated diarrheal and intestinal worm infections from bad water and poor hygiene practices lead to malnutrition and stunting in children.
- In our work for Mining Justice we see the negative effects on human health and agriculture when the construction and operation of mining sites permanently affect local water systems, and effluent from mining operations contaminates local water sources.
- And, overarching everything, is the Climate Crisis. More than 90% of climate disasters are water-related, whether floods, droughts, or aridification of land.3 These water crises seriously compromise access to WASH in vulnerable regions.
WASH saves lives
The examples above show how WASH is integral to all human endeavours. It is essential not only to health, but also to good nutrition, education, economic development, safety, gender equality, and climate resilience. Clean water, decent toilets, and good hygiene support all aspects of development. Ensuring access to WASH for everyone, everywhere, is necessary for human health, dignity, and well-being.
Dig deeper…
- Watch this 2-minute video from UNICEF on the impact of unsafe water, sanitation and hygiene on children.
- Watch this 3-minute video from Generation Nutrition on the connection between sanitation and nutrition.
- Why Water is a Woman’s Issue — 12-minute TEDx talk by water activist Eleanor Allen
- Learn more from our friends at WaterAid about about each of these crucial issues: Water and Sanitation and Hygiene.
You are invited!
We are officially launching our 2026 WASH Campaign with a learning event, Change Starts with Water, on Wednesday, January 28 at1:00 p.m. ET. Click here for more info. We hope you will join us.
