The Telegraph: Number of people forced to go to the toilet in the open cut by half
“The number of people around the world forced to go to the toilet in the open has halved since 2000, according to new data. A report by the World Health Organization and UNICEF that tracked household access to water, sanitation, and hygiene services found that in 2017 the number of people who practice ‘open defecation’ has reduced from 1.3 billion people in 2000 to 673 million in 2017…” (Gulland, 6/18).

U.N. News: Billions globally lack ‘water, sanitation and hygiene,’ new U.N. report spells out
“Some 2.2 billion people around the world do not have safely-managed drinking water, while 4.2 billion go without safe sanitation services and three billion lack basic handwashing facilities, according to a new report from the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the World Health Organization (WHO). … The Joint Monitoring Programme report, ‘Progress on drinking water, sanitation and hygiene: 2000-2017: Special focus on inequalities,’ finds that while significant progress has been made toward achieving universal access to WASH, there are huge gaps in the quality of services provided…” (6/17).