WASH Through a COVID Lens

According to a recent story by Devex, WASH — Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene — projects and organisations were uniquely impacted as the coronavirus pandemic changed the funding landscape.

On the one hand, handwashing and hygienic sanitation were among the most commonplace ways to help prevent the spread of COVID-19, along with masks and social distancing.

As the vaccine rollout continues to suffer supply shortages and distribution problems — and also continues to be unevenly favoring the global north — large portions of the world’s population will continue to rely on preventive measures for many years to come.

That should potentially make WASH programs more important and worthy of funding, given the role good handwashing practices can play in reducing the transmission of the virus.

Yet, the sub-segment of the development sector faces pressure from the parallel need to fund the supply of masks and to reinforce social distancing education. In many ways, masks and hand sanitizer have attracted more of the focus during COVID-19 than soap and clean water.

But the latter two are no less important. As Bruce Allan Gordon, WASH team leader at the World Health Organization told Devex:

“It is hard to get an idea of how hand hygiene or WASH service provision was prioritized in light of medical needs, like personal protective equipment, diagnostics, oxygen, and now of course vaccines.”

On the other hand, however, when viewed through the lens of COVID-19, WASH programs are likely to remain critical for the foreseeable future in slowing the transmission of the novel coronavirus in the developing world as it awaits a sufficient supply of vaccines.

Havuta has calculated that the need for WASH interventions rose by around 65 percent from pre-COVID-19 levels, given the impact that good handwashing facilities and practices have on the virus.

It also appears clear that at least some WASH funding was funnelled off to supply masks.

Insofar as hand hygiene will remain a critical component in the battle against COVID-19 for some time, WASH should not become a forgotten partner in fighting the disease even as the focus shifts to vaccines and mask-wearing.

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