2026-08-21 · people
Two billion lack safe sanitation
Toilets and treatment plants are uneven — open defecation persists in places.
Two billion people lack safe sanitation — a toilet that contains waste and treatment that keeps it out of water and the environment. The grid splits the world's 8.2 billion people along the WHO/UNICEF sanitation ladder: 57% used safely managed facilities in 2026; the other 43% relied on unimproved services or none, and open defecation persists in places.
1 cell = 8.2 million people (0.1% of world population) · 1,000 cells
Context
The figures come from the WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP), the custodian of global water, sanitation and hygiene data since 1990. Its global database draws on more than 5,000 national datasets to produce estimates for 234 countries, areas and territories, tracking WASH in households as well as schools and health care facilities.
The sanitation ladder ranks households from open defecation up through basic services to safely managed sanitation, where waste is contained and treated. JMP analysis focuses on inequality — rural versus urban, rich versus poor, and between sub-national regions — because national averages can hide who is left behind.
Where sanitation falls short, untreated waste can find its way back into water and living environments, and the burden falls hardest on the poorest households. The ladder is also the yardstick for the Sustainable Development Goal target of safe sanitation for all.
WHO / UNICEF JMP sanitation ladder.
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Credit this grid as Inagrid — https://inagrid.com/e/2026-08-21-sanitation-access