IRIN examines access to water and sanitation in Zambia, where “only 58 percent of Zambians have access to adequate sanitation and 13 percent lack any kind of toilet,” according to a 2008 study by the local non-governmental organization Water and Sanitation Forum.

“While the government has improved water and sanitation in urban areas, this is not the case in unplanned, high-density peri-urban settlements … where residents complain that lack of space and poor soil make it difficult to construct latrines, and a haphazard road network has contributed to a serious drainage problem,” IRIN writes. An unnamed government official told IRIN, “Sanitation has always been the most neglected and off-track of the Millennium Development Goals, with little funding or political will to address the crisis” (8/11).