The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) developed a “game plan” to help governments achieve safely managed sanitation for their populations and meet SDG target 6.2 on sanitation and hygiene. Through the game plan, UNICEF and partners will help 1 billion people gain access to safely managed sanitation, through direct and indirect support.

Speaking at a press conference, Ann Thomas, UNICEF, said SDG 6.2 “is the furthest off-track of all the SDGs, and furthest in terms of underfunding.” Highlighting that in 2020, an estimated 3.6 billion people lacked safely managed sanitation services – “a sanitation crisis,” especially for women and children, she said the rate of increase of sanitation coverage would need to quadruple to achieve universal access to safely managed services by 2030.

Poor sanitation is not a technological problem but a political will problem.

— Johannes Cullmann, UN-Water Vice Chair

Calling for a major escalation of effort and investment, the ‘UNICEF Game Plan to Reach Safely Managed Sanitation 2022-2030’ outlines the principles guiding UNICEF’s sanitation programming under the Game Plan to Reach Safely Managed Sanitation:

• Think big and work at scale;
• Focus on equity and inclusion;
• Look for resilient, green, sustainable solutions;
• Work across humanitarian and development contexts;
• Work with all stakeholders; and
• Choose interventions consistent with UNICEF’s comparative advantage, mandate for children, and privileged position working directly with governments.

In its vision to achieve the shared ambition of safely managed sanitation for all, the Game Plan is aligned with UN-Water’s SDG 6 Global Acceleration Framework and its five accelerators, and offers programming approaches related to each:

• Governance and policy: UNICEF will support governments in creating a robust policy environment that leads to sustainable and equitable, safely managed sanitation solutions for all;
• Finance: UNICEF will support governments in achieving a fully-funded, financially viable sanitation sector that provides affordable, safely managed services for everyone;
• Data and information: UNICEF will support robust, government-led monitoring of progress towards safely managed sanitation, along the entire sanitation service chain, with a focus on identifying exposure risks and tracking the elimination of inequalities;
• Capacity development: UNICEF will support governments in building a proactive, competent sanitation sector in which all actors have the skills and capacity needed to play their roles; and
• Innovation: UNICEF will support governments in creating a vibrant and innovative sanitation sector in which new ideas, methodologies, and products that facilitate the achievement of affordable and inclusive safely managed sanitation are fostered.

According to the report, UNICEF country offices “will be encouraged to develop a country-level Game Plan that describes UNICEF’s support for the achievement of safely managed sanitation for that country.”

The Game Plan was launched on 17 November 2022, ahead of the World Toilet Day. As per a UN news release, the “taboo” and “invisible” sanitation-related topics will be discussed at the UN-Water Summit on Groundwater, from 7-8 December, and at the UN 2023 Water Conference from 22-24 March 2023. [Publication: UNICEF Game Plan to Reach Safely Managed Sanitation 2022-2030] [Executive Summary] [Publication Landing Page] [UN News Story]