(Press Release) Over the last few years, Sudan made some positive progress in increasing access to improved sanitation. A comparison between the Sudan Household Health Survey, 2010, and the MICS, 2014, indicates that coverage has increased from 27 per cent to 33 per cent for improved sanitation facilities, while open defecation has marginally reduced from 31 per cent to 29 per cent. However there is wide disparity at state level, with Northern State and Khartoum showing close to 80 per cent use of improved sanitation, whilst Kordofan and Darfur States show levels generally less than 20 per cent. This disparity deepens between rural and urban as well as poor and wealthier households.
Over the next fifteen years the sanitation trend needs to increase dramatically by 67 per cent, from 33 per cent in 2014 to 100 per cent in 2030.  For Sudan to be on track to achieve 'sanitation for all' by 2030, there needs to be an average increase of 5 per cent access to improved sanitation every year.
“For children, lack of access to improved sanitation can be tragic”, says UNICEF Representative Abdullah Fadil. “Diarrhoeal diseases linked to unsafe drinking water, poor sanitation, or poor hygiene is one of the leading causes of malnutrition and child mortality in Sudan. With the current 29 per cent of the population practicing open defecation, significant investment and commitment is required from Government, donors and the private sector, to empower communities through the participatory process to become open defecation free and for families to achieve safely managed sanitation services, including a handwashing facility with soap and water,” Fadil emphasized.
Considering that the increase between 2010 and 2014 was 0.5 per cent per year and the increase between 2014 and 2015 is estimated to be 3 per cent, there is a clear need to significantly speed up and sustain the scaling up of access to improved sanitation across Sudan over the next 15 years.