December 27, 2005--For Want Of A Toilet

For decades development specialists have been unanimous in saying that if countries in the developing world could manage to provide a basic education to girls this would lead to considerable economic progress (in may places women are at the center of providing livelihoods for their families), improvements in the institutions of civil society (educated women play key roles here), and healthier reproductive practices. Schooling for girls then is the single most powerful development tool.

Though there is much that needs to occur in order to reach that goal—at a minimum a complete primary education for girls—there is one relatively simple thing to do, also known about for many years, that is not very alluring or “sexy” to international donors and thus has not received the support it deserves—toilets. If girls are to stay in school beyond the 4th grade, what can I tell you, they need them.

Which foundation or international agency wants to be known for being in the toilet business? There are Pew and Kellogg Centers, Gates Scholarships, and Rockefeller Fellowships. But no Carnegie or Mellon or Ford Toilets.

But having private toilet facilities for schoolgirls in sub-Saharan Africa and other impoverished places would help get the job done. Experts agree if would contribute to the elimination of the 4th grade drop out problem. It may be as simple as that.

Here’s the problem—typically girls begin to menstruate at age 14 or 15 and without private sanitary facilities girls will stop going to school. This is especially true in those cultures where menstruation is so taboo that a menstruating girl is not allowed to participate in cooking. So to expect schoolgirls to hide in the bushes because there are no toilets is not going to work. And thus they stop going to school. The problem is so acute that in central Africa at least 24 million girls will never complete even an elementary education.

Finally, this issue, which has been ignored for so long, received front page treatment recently in the NY Times (see full article linked below). Though there are other pressures on girls to drop out—sexual harassment by male teachers (there are many fewer female teachers, again because so few girls continue in school much less enroll in teacher training programs), growing responsibilities at home, and pressure from parents to get married, according to the Nairobi-based Forum of Women Educationalists, the inconvenience of menstruating while in school without sanitation, is just one more reason for girls to stay at home.

As evidence that this is true, when Guinea decided to establish “girl friendly” schools, including improvements in school sanitation, between 1997 and 2002, enrollment rates for girls jumped 17 percent and the dropout rate fell at an even greater rate. This only goes to show that sometimes seemingly intractable problems have clear, affordable, sustainable solutions.

It all depends on what you consider to be sexy.