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Resource library

Resources are listed below chronologically but are also searchable through using the keyword search and the filters in the sidebar, by Topic, Country, Date, Language and Type.

 

Will Narendra Modi free India from open defecation?

“Has it ever pained us that our mothers and sisters have to defecate in the open?” With these words, the new Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi last week pushed sanitation up the hierarchy of national concerns. Using the solemn speech in the annual commemoration of the Independence Day, Modi announced a new campaign to eliminate open defecation – the practice of people relieving themselves in the open – by 150th anniversary of Gandhi’s birth in 2019.

Are children in West Bengal shorter than children in Bangladesh?

Children in West Bengal and Bangladesh are presumed to share the same distribution of genetic height potential. In West Bengal they are richer, on average, and are therefore slightly taller. However, when wealth is held constant, children in Bangladesh are taller. This gap can be fully accounted for by differences in open defecation, and especially by open defecation in combination with differences in women’s status and maternal nutrition.

Date: 19 February 2014
Country: 
Bangladesh,
India

Improved Use of Toilets Boosts Childhood Test Scores, Decreases Stunting

Access to improved sanitation can increase cognition in children, according to a new World Bank study. The study contributes to a growing body of research linking stunting and open defecation. Currently, more than 2.5 billion people worldwide lack access to toilets, and one billion people practice open defecation. 

Date: 19 November 2013
Country: 
India

Sanitation and stunting in India: Undernutrition's blind spot

Global proportions of ODF, poverty and undernutrition diagram
The puzzle of persistent undernutrition in India is largely explained by open defecation, population density, and lack of sanitation and hygiene. The impact on nutrition of many faecally-transmitted infections, not just the diarrhoeas, has been a blind spot. In hygienic conditions much of the undernutrition in India would disappear. To tackle undernutrition effectively requires the elimination of open defecation and a radical transformation of sanitation and hygiene policies and practices.
Date: 15 July 2013
Country: 
India