User:JustinePorto/Public toilets in Ethiopia

Public toilets in Ethiopia are often not available, mirroring a wider societal issue of lack of toilet access in general. More recently, public toilets have been built in Addis Ababa, and can be found on modern long distance buses. They are also available at hotels.

Public toilets
Squat toilets are the most common type of public toilets, and most are dirty, pit latrine style that do not have water and do not provide toilet paper. Western style flush toilets are occasionally available at restaurants and hotels.

When the design for new public toilets for Addis Ababa were initially unveiled, the facilities had stairs to access them. This design was later changed through the addition of ramps as a result of a female attendant with a disability complaining that she could not access them, and all new facilities after that were required to have ramp access for people with disabilities. The government engaged in community outreach and further modified public toilet services to include water for washing and seating areas.

Public toilets in Arba Minch were built next to a bus station in kebele eleven. Given a choice between pour flush toilets and  urine diverting toilets, the decision was made to use urine diverting ones as they were simpler to build and needed less sludge management. Five toilets were installed to cater to around 300 users a day, who would charged 0.2 birr a use. Waste generated from the toilets was then sold to local farmers. To be profitable, advertising was also sold, along with selling travel accessories. This was further supplemented by having public pay showers.

It cost around USD$0.017-0.028 to use a public toilet in 2007. There were 63 public toilets in Addis Ababa in 2014.

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.

More modern buses serving long distance routes in Ethiopia often have toilets on board. At mid-range hotels in Ethiopia, not all toilets in hotels will have a seat attached.

Sanitation access and open defecation
93% of Ethiopia's population in 2018 lacked access to a basic toilet. This percentage ranked them as the lowest in the world. Only 7% of households in Ethiopia in 2018 had a decent toilet. WaterAid ranked the country as one of the ten worst in the world in 2016 for urban access to safe and private toilets. On a per capita basis, WaterAid said in 2016 that the country was in the top ten in the world for having the least number of safe and private toilets in urban areas. In 2000, the countries with the lowest sanitation coverage in Africa were Ethiopia, Benin, Congo, Gabon and Niger. It cost around USD$0.017-0.028 to use a public toilet in 2007.

Regional and global situation impacting public toilets in Ethiopia
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. In developing countries, unisex public toilets have been a disaster because they make women feel unsafe and fail to consider local religious beliefs. 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. Only a few places tend to have flush toilets with toilet seats. These include high end hotels and restaurants. Mid-range hotels and restaurants may have a toilet but no seat or may have a squat toilet.