Water, sanitation and hygiene

Respond to emergencies

Water, sanitation and hygiene

UNHCR works to ensure forcibly displaced people can access clean water, sanitation and hygiene services. These life-saving services contribute to their protection, health, well-being and dignity, and help prevent disease outbreaks.

Two women fill jerry cans with water from an outdoor tap.

Ariet, a member of the host community, collects water from a tap near her house in Gambella, Ethiopia. UNHCR and partners provided safe water for both refugees and the host community, promoting peaceful coexistence between the two communities.

WASH is the collective term for water, sanitation and hygiene. While each is a separate field of work, they are interdependent and contribute to the overall protection, health, well-being and resilience of refugees.

Refugees often live in areas with harsh conditions with limited access to safe water, sanitation and hygiene services. Without toilets, water sources can quickly become contaminated. Without accessible safe water, women and girls must often travel long distances to find clean water, increasing their risk of gender-based violence. Without soap and hygiene products, diseases can spread more easily in communities.

WASH in emergencies

During an emergency, UNHCR works to provide refugees and host communities with access to water, sanitation and hygiene services. This work ensures the immediate survival and dignity of people forced to flee, while also helping prevent disease outbreaks and protecting people from gender-based violence. We work with governments and partners to ensure that refugees are not left behind in achieving Sustainable Development Goal 6: “clean water and sanitation for all”.

Clean water

We ensure people forced to flee can access safe water for drinking, cooking and washing. If existing water systems are available, we aim to reinforce or upgrade the infrastructure to meet increased demand. In places lacking existing systems, we often work with partners to locate groundwater and drill boreholes. Collecting water can be a time-consuming task that often falls to women and girls, limiting their time for school or work and increasing their risk of gender-based violence. To address this, we work to ensure water points are close to homes. UNHCR supports water users’ committees to encourage community-led initiatives for increasingly sustainable water management.

Sanitation facilities

UNHCR works with partners to improve existing sanitation and solid waste management systems or build new ones. This helps to control disease vectors such as mosquitos, flies or vermin and reduces the impact of waste on the environment. We aim to provide access to facilities that are safe, private and dignified for all, especially for women and girls, elderly people and people with specific needs.

Hygiene services

UNHCR helps to increase access to soap and hygiene products, including menstrual hygiene products, preferably through cash-based interventions. This approach allows people to buy the products they prefer from local shops and suppliers. We also collaborate with local authorities and partners on inclusive hygiene promotion activities. Through these, we help refugees to participate in local campaigns, especially during outbreaks of waterborne diseases such as cholera or dysentery.

Inclusion of refugees in national water and sanitation systems

Refugees are increasingly displaced for long periods of time. Recognizing this, and in line with the Global Compact on Refugees, UNHCR’s WASH programmes focus on including refugee-hosting areas in existing local water and sanitation systems from the outset. We also aim for more integrated and sustainable solutions, and to transition away from emergency parallel systems if established.

To achieve this, UNHCR works with and supports users, local service providers, governments, and development stakeholders to strengthen the ownership, management and capacity of water and sanitation systems.

Climate-resilient WASH programming

Many of the world’s forcibly displaced people live in some of the most climate-vulnerable areas. Refugees face significant impacts from climate change, including water scarcity, contamination, and damage to WASH infrastructure caused by floods, droughts, severe weather and overexploitation of natural resources.

In line with the Strategic Framework for Climate Action and the Focus Area Strategic Plan for Climate Action 2024-2030, UNHCR is working towards climate-resilient WASH systems. We are implementing interventions that consider and mitigate against climate risks, incorporate early warning systems, and are adaptive to climate impacts. We are also working to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and negative effects on natural resources.

To protect WASH infrastructure against increasingly frequent and intense floods and severe weather, we will focus on long-term monitoring of groundwater resources. We will also focus on the use of renewable energy sources for water pumping and treatment and strengthening community management of these systems.