Faecal contamination of groundwater from pit latrines is widely perceived as a major threat to the safety of drinking water for several billion people in rural and peri-urban areas worldwide.

Indiscriminate defecation among young children and the unsafe disposal of their feces increases fecal contamination in the household environment and the risk of diarrheal disease transmission. Improved sanitary technology for children too young to use a latrine may facilitate safe feces disposal and reduce fecal contamination in the household environment.

(Faruqe Hussain, Stephen P. Luby, Leanne Unicomb, Elli Leontsini, Tania Naushin,  Audrey J. Buckland, and Peter J. Winch in  American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, 19th June 2017)

Bangladesh is a hub of sanitation experimentation and model-building. It is internationally recognised as the place where Community-Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) first succeeded in eliminating open defecation (OD) from whole villages. This and other achievements rest on a broad foundation. After briefly reviewing the history of sanitation promotion in rural Bangladesh, this paper summarises the most urgent issues and challenges related to sustaining the country’s achievements in 2015.

Continued management of sanitation and hygiene services, post-intervention, is a global challenge, particularly in the school-setting. This situation threatens anticipated impacts of school sanitation and hygiene investments. To improve programming and policies, and increase the effectiveness of limited development
resources, this study seeks to understand how and why some schools have well-managed sanitation post-intervention,
while others do not.