User:JustinePorto/Public toilets in Angola

Public toilets in Angola faced issues with a lack of sewage capacity to build flush toilets. Some markets have public toilets. Problems with government payment have resulted in some public toilets closing.

Public toilets
In majority white ruled parts of the country in the late 1970s, public toilets were often available and well maintained as a means of reinforcing racial segregation. These facilities were also something demanded by local white expatriates. This contrasted with public toilet services for other people, which were largely non-existent.

The average daily water usage per person between 1998-2002 was less than 50 liters a day. This limited the ability to use flush toilet systems in public toilets.

An informal Congolese market was located near Catete Road in Luanda starting around 2001. It had some issues, including a lack of public toilets and stagnant water as a result of flooding causing potential health problems. In early 2008, a formal Congolese market opened in Luanda near Catete Road. The market had public toilets. At other Congolenses in Angola, there were often public toilets in them or located nearby. These toilets often charged people to use them.

Many public toilets in Luanda were broken in the late 2010s. This resulted in their closure. A private company, Gente Agente, had been contracted to run many of them, charging a small fee and getting funding from the Province of Luanda. After the government missed some of their payments in 2018, Gente Agente abandoned them as they were dependent on the government funding to make them profitable.

Sanitation and open defecation
Access to adequate sanitation is a problem. Progress began to be made in general waste management in the 1990s.

In the early 2000s, 87% of the country's population lacked adequate sanitation. This number had improved some by 2012. cholera caused around 400 deaths a month in the first half of 2006. This was one of the worst in sub-Saharan Africa and linked to poor sanitation. Open defecation and urination was common in Luanda in the 2010s as a result of the lack of functional public toilets.

Regional and global situation impacting public toilets in Angola
Around 2.5 billion people around the world in 2018 did not have access to adequate toilet facilities. Around 4.5 billion people lacked access to proper sanitation. Public toilet access around the world is most acute in the Global South, with around 3.6 billion people, 40% of the world's total population, lacking access to any toilet facilities. 2.3 people in the the Global South do not have toilet facilities in their residence. Despite the fact that the United Nation made a declaration in 2010 that clean water and sanitation is a human right, little has been done in many places towards addressing this on a wider level.

Public toilets, depending on their design, can be tools of social exclusion. The lack of single-sex women's toilets in developing countries makes it harder for women to participate in public life, in education and in the workplace. Across Africa, open defecation had social consequences. These included loss of dignity and privacy. It also put women at risk of sexual violence.

An issue in developing countries is toilet access in schools. Only 46% of schools in developing countries have them. Many schools around the world in 2018 did not have toilets, with the problem particularly acute in parts of Africa and Asia. Only one in five primary schools on earth had a toilet and only one in eight secondary schools had public toilets. In developing countries, girls are less likely to attend school once they hit puberty if their school does not have adequate hygiene facilities. 344 million children in sub-Saharan Africa did not have a toilet in their home in 2018. The lack of toilet access put these children at risk of water borne diseases.

There are generally two toilet styles in public bathrooms in Africa. One is a traditional squat toilet. The other is a western style toilet with bowl and a place to sit. Flush toilets are often only found in affluent areas of developing countries.