Methodological challenges of measuring impacts of WASH on educational and health outcomes

Evidence on the impacts of improved Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) on health and educational outcomes continues to grow and is being used to advocate for an integrated approach to WASH programming. This paper shows that recent analytical work by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) at the Eastern and Southern Africa Regional Office (ESARO) WASH section in Nairobi has revealed that there is a methodological challenge in building a robust evidence on the impacts of improved WASH on educational and health outcomes. The paper reveals that there remain large gaps in data collection and monitoring processes and that as a result inhibit efforts to make concrete inferences on the impacts of WASH on educational and health outcomes.