Tackling toilet loss: The hidden economic and societal cost of neglecting school toilets

Imagine you are a child and the only toilet in your school is out of order—and has been since the start of the school year. Sadly, this is the reality for at least 539 million school children around the world. Almost half of these children have no toilet in school at all. For the other half, a toilet may exist but have become unusable through a lack of basic maintenance. These children suffer the impact of Toilet Loss daily.

Toilet Loss is the economic and societal cost of neglected toilets. 

Economist Impact, supported by Unilever, is launching novel research that measures the scale, scope and cost of Toilet Loss and develops an investment pathway to ensure every child has access to a clean and safe basic school toilet. The research covers four geographically diverse countries: Ecuador, India, Nigeria and the Philippines.