2026-09-28 · people
Two billion lack safe sanitation
Toilets and treatment plants are uneven — open defecation persists in places.
Two billion people lack safe sanitation, and open defecation persists in places. In the WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme's 2026 estimates, 57% of the world's 8.2 billion people use safely managed sanitation, while 43% rely on unimproved facilities or none at all — a divide with direct consequences for health and dignity.
1 cell = 8.2 million people (0.1% of world population) · 1,000 cells
Context
The estimates come from the WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP), the custodian of global data on water supply, sanitation and hygiene. Drawing on more than 5,000 national datasets, it produces figures for 234 countries, areas and territories and has published global updates since 1990.
Its sanitation ladder runs from open defecation and unimproved facilities up to safely managed services, and its reporting highlights who is left behind — comparing rural and urban households, wealth quintiles and sub-national regions. The 2025 household update made inequalities its special focus.
Beyond households, the JMP applies the same monitoring to schools and health care facilities, and also tracks drinking water and hygiene worldwide.
WHO / UNICEF JMP sanitation ladder.
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