Philippines / Indonesia / Cambodia / South Africa Usable sanitation facilities and improved standards boost demand for hygiene products

According to the United Nations Children’s Fund, UNICEF, around 1,800 children worldwide die every day from diarrhoeal diseases. Pathogenic bacteria are mainly transmitted via contaminated hands. Washing hands with soap and water, for example after using the toilet, before eating, and after playing outdoors, therefore is an essential need. It reduces the risk of diarrhoea by up to 45 per cent and pneumonia by 23 per cent. Schools play a key role in improving water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) standards: children should incorporate hygiene and cleanliness into their daily routines at an early age. Poor hygiene not only affects a child’s health and development, but also performance at school, which in turn impacts on a country’s educational achievement.  

Increased awareness of cleanliness and hygiene as a result of the project should help Unilever to further develop the market for hygiene and cleaning products and increase sales in the long term. Measures to improve health and well-being and to promote equality and integration at a global level are part of Unilever’s corporate strategy.

In order to integrate hygiene behaviour into everyday school life in the Philippines, Indonesia, Cambodia and South Africa, and to improve sanitation in schools, Unilever and GIZ implemented the following activities from 2019 to 2023 with a project budget of EUR 3.83 million:

• Development of training measures for school authorities and school staff to improve the operation, cleaning and maintenance of school sanitation facilities
• Drawing up of cleaning protocols, checklists, standards, and evaluation criteria for sanitation facilities
• Introduction of the Clean School Toilet Award as an incentive for school districts
• Development of holistic hygiene concepts in the context of pandemic prevention and control, and provision of handwashing stations
• Establishment of an exchange platform for governments, development partners and non-governmental organisations on school sanitation and hygiene (Global WASH in Schools Network)

GIZ contributed its extensive international experience in WASH and in cooperation with local and political partners to the project. Among other things, it supported the national education ministries in developing guidelines and training materials and integrating them into public learning management systems. Unilever provided materials for schools, produced videos on hygiene and organised the Clean School Toilet Award. Throughout the project, the project partners worked closely with project country ministries and with international organisations to implement the measures in a targeted manner, scale them up across the country and institutionalise them in the long term.  

The project was supported by the Hygiene & Behaviour Change Coalition, an initiative launched by the British Foreign Office and Unilever in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, which scaled up the activities and their impact.  

Sanitation and hygiene have been improved at numerous schools in the project countries. The schools were also able to respond better to the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

• The proportion of schools in the Philippines with usable and gender-segregated toilets rose from 39 to 74 per cent.
• A school operating model during pandemics and for school prevention measures was implemented at 220 model schools.
• More than 114,000 employees from authorities and schools took part in training measures that were integrated into the state training programmes offered by the ministries of education.
• Information on pandemic preparedness and response in schools, disseminated through the communication channels maintained by the ministries of education, reached more than 25 million people.
• More than 100 experts from 26 African countries participated in the WASH in Schools International Learning Exchange taking place the first time in Africa.