PARLIAMENTARY WRITTEN QUESTION
Developing Countries: Sanitation (5 July 2017)

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what assessment her Department has made of the relationship between clean water and sanitation in schools and school attendance in developing countries.

Asked by:
Kerry McCarthy (Labour)

There is limited evidence on the relationship between clean water and sanitation in schools and school attendance. A systematic review funded by DFID in 2011 found insufficient evidence to demonstrate this link. A more recent review (2015) found that hand hygiene measures might decrease absence and improve health. One trial, relating only to Kenya, found that provision of hygiene promotion, water treatment and sanitation reduced girls’ absenteeism from school by 58% in some study areas. We do know from experience through our programmes that water and clean, sex-specific toilets can be important factors in school attendance, particularly for adolescent girls. We are therefore funding significant research through SHARE (a consortium led by London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine) into ways of maximising the impacts of water, sanitation and hygiene investments on health and school attendance.

Answered by:
Alistair Burt (Conservative)
10 July 2017