Overcoming WASH Challenges in Emergency Settings

When a disaster strikes or conflict erupts, access to clean water, safe sanitation, and basic hygiene becomes a matter of life and death. Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH) services form the backbone of public health protection during emergencies, yet delivering these essential services in crisis settings presents enormous challenges. From reaching vulnerable populations to addressing resource constraints and navigating conflict zones, humanitarian responders face complex barriers that demand innovative solutions.

Equitable access to WASH services 🔗

One of the most pressing challenges in emergency WASH response is ensuring that services reach everyone equally. Vulnerable groups-including women, children, elderly populations, and persons with disabilities-often face additional barriers that standard WASH interventions fail to address.

Barriers faced by persons with disabilities 🔗

Research from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine reveals that people with disabilities have lower access to WASH services and face significant challenges using facilities independently. Physical barriers include uneven terrain, muddy ground, steps, and inappropriate pump handles that prevent access. Even when households have access to WASH facilities, individuals with disabilities typically experience reduced access compared to other family members.

During emergencies, these challenges intensify. Evidence from disability research organisations shows that people with disabilities are more likely to be marginalised by WASH programmes during crises because of disruptions to their physical and social environment. Many emergency latrines lack features like handrails, adequate space, or raised seats that would enable independent use.

Challenges for women and girls 🔗

According to UNHCR, women and girls face heightened risks when WASH services are inadequate. Without accessible safe water sources, they must often travel long distances to find clean water, increasing their exposure to gender-based violence. Communal toilet facilities in camps pose particular risks, especially when used at night. Managing menstrual hygiene becomes extremely difficult without private, well-lit facilities with water and disposal options.

Caregivers-who are predominantly women-bear additional burdens in emergencies. They must provide WASH support to family members with disabilities or chronic illness while often lacking guidance, equipment, or time to maintain their own hygiene needs. This unpaid care work frequently prevents them from earning income to support their families’ recovery.

Resource scarcity and coordination issues 🔗

Humanitarian WASH responses routinely face significant funding shortfalls and coordination challenges that limit their effectiveness.

Funding gaps 🔗

Action Against Hunger’s 2024 Water Funding Gap report found that globally, only 36% of appeals for water and sanitation-related funding were met in 2023, leaving a 64% gap. This chronic underfunding occurs even as needs intensify-3.6 billion people worldwide lack adequate sanitation and remain susceptible to waterborne diseases. The Global WASH Cluster reports that approximately 168 million people need life-saving WASH assistance due to conflicts, climate disasters, and public health emergencies.

Strikingly, greater hunger burden does not correlate with greater water funding. Countries experiencing severe food crises often see their water-related funding appeals go largely unmet, despite the deep connection between water security and nutrition.

Coordination challenges 🔗

The Global WASH Cluster acknowledges that WASH responses are too often inadequate because of capacity limitations, lack of preparedness, and insufficient funding. Emergency services frequently fail to meet the critical needs of affected populations.

A comprehensive gap analysis based on feedback from over 1,700 people affected by crises revealed that long-term service delivery falls significantly short of community expectations. People affected by emergencies primarily want reliable services-water, sanitation, solid waste disposal, and hygiene items-while responders struggle with mechanisms to provide those services effectively. This disconnect between community needs and response capacity represents a fundamental challenge.

Multi-stakeholder collaboration remains essential but difficult. Mandates and methodologies for joint analysis, data collection, and strategic planning are often misaligned between humanitarian organisations, development actors, and government authorities. Financing mechanisms rarely support the integrated humanitarian-development approaches needed for sustainable solutions.

Environmental and conflict-related hurdles 🔗

Natural disasters and armed conflicts create particularly challenging conditions for WASH delivery.

Climate-related contamination 🔗

UNHCR’s emergency guidance highlights that climate change poses serious risks to WASH services. Droughts, heatwaves, storms, and flooding damage infrastructure, contaminate water sources, and make service delivery more complex. Flood events can overwhelm sanitation systems, spreading contamination across wide areas and contaminating previously safe water supplies. Drought conditions reduce available water for drinking and hygiene while concentrating pollutants in remaining sources.

People with disabilities face heightened vulnerability to these climate hazards because of pre-existing inequalities and barriers to accessing WASH services and critical safety information during climatic events. Environmental considerations must be mainstreamed into WASH interventions from the onset of emergencies.

Conflict and water resource tensions 🔗

Armed conflicts present unique WASH challenges. Infrastructure damage, population displacement, and deliberate targeting of water systems can rapidly destroy essential services. In conflict-affected Yemen, destroyed water supply and sanitation infrastructure contributed to the world’s worst recorded cholera outbreak in 2017.

The International Organization for Migration notes that competition for limited water resources can itself become a source of conflict in displacement settings. Supporting integrated water resource management helps reduce these tensions while ensuring long-term access for all. Humanitarian actors must advocate for compliance with International Humanitarian Law to protect water resources, WASH personnel, and infrastructure.

Innovative solutions for WASH delivery 🔗

Despite significant challenges, innovative approaches are improving WASH services in emergency settings.

Mobile and portable sanitation technologies 🔗

The CDC’s WASH innovation programme highlights container-based toilets as a promising solution for emergencies. These mobile units can be easily deployed, are raised for easier access by people with injuries or mobility limitations, and can be serviced more safely than traditional options. Portable prefabricated units with water-tight holding tanks have demonstrated success in flood-prone areas where conventional pit latrines fail.

The Reinvent the Toilet Challenge has spurred development of new sanitation technologies that operate off-grid without connections to water or sewer systems. These innovations are particularly valuable in crowded emergency settlements or flood-prone areas where traditional infrastructure is impractical.

Community-led approaches 🔗

Community-Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) has been adapted for emergency contexts in over 70 countries. This methodology mobilises communities to eliminate open defecation through collective behaviour change, engaging affected populations in designing and maintaining solutions appropriate to their context.

Tiger worm toilets represent another community-appropriate innovation-earthworms decompose human waste into compost within about 60 days, compared to two years for conventional pit latrines. First deployed by Oxfam in Liberia in 2013, these systems have since been installed in refugee camps in Ethiopia and Myanmar.

Inclusive design and disability integration 🔗

WaterAid’s innovation programmes emphasise that technology alone does not create transformative impact. Effective solutions require partnership with local authorities and communities, adaptation to local contexts, and explicit attention to inclusion. In Burkina Faso, community-led sanitation approaches were adapted to local culture and integrated into government policy for sustainable impact.

Disability-inclusive WASH design is gaining attention. Simple adaptations-guide ropes to facilities, grab rails, raised toilet seats, space for caregiver assistance-can dramatically improve access for people with disabilities without excessive cost. Evidence-based checklists now exist to help service providers design interventions that include people with disabilities, older adults, and their caregivers from the start.

Moving forward with evidence-based action 🔗

Elrha’s Humanitarian Innovation Fund continues identifying gaps and funding innovations to address them. Their research highlights the need for better feedback mechanisms from affected communities, designs based on local needs rather than solely global standards, and outcomes that reflect what matters to communities themselves.

The humanitarian WASH research community has identified priorities including cholera transmission, menstrual hygiene management, and acute undernutrition. A more cohesive and coordinated research effort across the sector would advance evidence-based practice. Critically, this must involve meaningful participation of affected communities and organisations of persons with disabilities in identifying priorities and designing solutions.

What do you think? How can local communities be better engaged in designing WASH solutions that meet their specific needs during emergencies? What role should technology play versus community-based approaches in improving emergency sanitation?

References

1. https://journals.plos.org/water/article?id=10.1371/journal.pwat.0000257
2. https://www.disabilityevidence.org/questions-evidence/what-are-key-considerations-including-people-disabilities-covid-19-hygiene
3. https://www.unhcr.org/us/what-we-do/respond-emergencies/water-sanitation-and-hygiene
4. https://reliefweb.int/report/world/2024-water-funding-gap-report
5. https://www.washcluster.net/node/31581
6. https://www.washcluster.net/gwc-collaboration-and-initiatives
7. https://reliefweb.int/report/world/gaps-wash-humanitarian-response-2021-update
8. https://emergency.unhcr.org/emergency-assistance/water-sanitation-and-hygiene/wash-emergencies
9. https://www.iom.int/water-sanitation-and-hygiene
10. https://www.cdc.gov/global-water-sanitation-hygiene/stories/innovations-for-the-field.html
11. https://www.gatesfoundation.org/our-work/programs/global-growth-and-opportunity/water-sanitation-and-hygiene/reinvent-the-toilet-challenge-and-expo
12. https://www.cltsfoundation.org/wp-content/cache/all/human-rights-day-wash-during-emergencies/index.html
13. https://washmatters.wateraid.org/innovation
14. https://www.elrha.org/researchdatabase/gaps-in-wash-in-humanitarian-response-2021-update/
15. https://ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6003178/