2026-07-13 · people
Two billion lack safe sanitation
Toilets and treatment plants are uneven — open defecation persists in places.
Two billion people lack safe sanitation, and the consequences travel through water, soil and hands: cholera, typhoid, parasitic infection. Today's grid splits humanity as the WHO/UNICEF JMP measured it in 2026 — 57% of the world's people use safely managed sanitation, while 43% rely on unimproved facilities or none, and open defecation persists in places.
1 cell = 8.2 million people (0.1% of world population) · 1,000 cells
Context
Today's grid follows the WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme's sanitation ladder. "Safely managed" means a household toilet that is not shared with other households and where excreta are safely contained, emptied and treated. In the 2026 estimates, 57% of the world's people had that level of service; the other 43% relied on unimproved facilities or none at all.
The JMP builds its estimates from more than 5,000 national datasets covering 234 countries, areas and territories. Its reporting consistently shows the burden is unevenly shared: gaps run along rural–urban lines and wealth quintiles, with the poorest and most rural households least likely to have safe sanitation.
Open defecation sits at the bottom of the ladder and remains a core JMP monitoring topic; where it persists, waste returns to water and soil untreated. The same programme tracks WASH in schools and health care facilities, where missing toilets and hand hygiene turn clinics and classrooms into infection risks.
WHO / UNICEF JMP sanitation ladder.
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Credit this grid as Inagrid — https://inagrid.com/e/2026-07-13-sanitation-access