National Geographic USA - August 2017

Percentage of children

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Number of people per acre openly defecating

25 50

10

20

30

40

50

60%

Haiti

Brazil

Dominican Republic

Ghana

Nigeria

Nepal

Eritrea

100 million

10 million

1 million

Number

of people

openly

defecating

Sao Tome and Principe

Timor-Leste

Togo

India

Indonesia

Pakistan

Ethiopia

Burundi

1

2

(^34)
(^58)
10
6
9
7
NORTH
AMERICA
SOUTH
AMERICA
EUROPE
AFRICA
ASIA
AUSTRALIA
INDIA
VIETNAM
HAITI
More than 40
25 to 39.9
10 to 24.9
1 to 9.9
Less than 1
No data
Percentage
of population
that defecates
in the open
Countries with highest rates

1. Eritrea


2. South Sudan


3. Niger


4. Chad


5. Burkina Faso


6. Sao Tome and Principe


7. Solomon Islands


8. Benin


9. Togo


10. Namibia

JASON TREAT AND MATTHEW W. CHWASTYK, NGM STAFF; KELSEY NOWAKOWSKI

SOURCES: WHO/UNICEF JOINT MONITORING PROGRAMME FOR WATER SUPPLY AND SANITATION; SANGITA VYAS, RESEARCH INSTITUTE FOR COMPASSIONATE ECONOMICS

Vietnam India

Change in open-defecation rates

100%

50

0

1990 2015 1990 2015

39% 44%

75%

0.7%

The percentage of people defecating in

the open air declined worldwide from 1990

to 2015, with the most dramatic reductions

in some of the least developed countries.

Yet nearly 950 million people still practice

this public health hazardóa challenge

augmented by population growth.

Cleaning Up an

Unsanitary World

MAKING GAINS

Vietnam has nearly eradi-

cated open defecation.

UN statistics based on toilet

construction show India has

made progress tooóbut

some experts dispute the

extent, arguing in part that

many of the latrines that

have been built go unused.

SANITATION AND STUNTING

In many developing countries, the

prevalence of open defecation has a

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them to illnesses that cause malnutri-

tion and stunt their growth. About

569 million

people in India

defecate in the open.