Fish for Livelihoods: Water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) survey

Safe drinking water, sanitation and hygiene are basic needs for human life. Without them, human well-being cannot flourish. According to a report from the One Drop Foundation, 30% of the world’s population (2.2 billion) does not have safe drinking water at home and 27% (2 billion) do not have basic sanitation services. In Myanmar, with a population of around 55 million, the water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) situation is in poor condition: approximately 10 million people do not have clean water, about 11 million people do not have a decent toilet facility, and over 3,000 children over 5 die a year (WaterAid, 2018). The majority of the people who do not have these basic needs live in rural areas.1 One of the main activities of the Fish for Livelihoods (F4L) project is to promote and improve WASH practices throughout central and northern Myanmar. This study investigates the state of WASH facilities that Fish for Livelihoods provided in 2020 as well as the WASH practices among the project’s participants in eight townships: Khin-U (Sagaing Region), Madaya (Mandalay Region), Ngape and Salin (Magway Region), and Pekhon, Pinlaung, Pindaya and Taunggyi (southern Shan State). This document captures the findings of one of the annual performance surveys carried out with the project's Year-1 (Oct 2019 – Sep 2020) SSA farmers provisioned with the WASH materials. The report contains information about sampling methodology, data collection, data analysis, findings, and recommendations that will help ensure better implementation of WASH activities in the upcoming years of the project.