Splash International tests a citywide model for school water and hygiene
Published on 30 August 2026 at 02:51 GMT
By Editorial Team SDG6
Splash International has built its work around a practical question in global development: whether school water, sanitation and hygiene services can move beyond isolated projects and reach every public school in a fast-growing city. The organisation’s Project WISE programme has pursued that approach in Ethiopia and India, combining water infrastructure, handwashing facilities, hygiene education and menstrual health support in schools serving children in low-income urban communities.
The focus addresses a persistent gap in SDG 6 (clean water and sanitation). The World Health Organization and UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme tracks whether schools have basic drinking water, sanitation and hygiene services. Its 2024 update concluded that progress towards the 2030 global targets requires a marked acceleration. The monitoring framework also makes clear that the presence of infrastructure alone is not the whole measure: water has to be available, sanitation facilities usable and private, and handwashing points supplied with water and soap.
Splash’s model therefore links construction and equipment with behaviour-change activities and arrangements intended to keep services functioning. Its interventions have included water storage and filtration, separate drinking and handwashing stations, rehabilitation of toilets, teacher training, student hygiene clubs and menstrual health programmes. Governments and schools are expected to share roles in financing, operation and maintenance, although the mix varies by location.
From individual sites to citywide coverage
Founded in 2007 and based in the United States, Splash initially worked across child-serving institutions in several Asian and African countries. Its portfolio has included schools, orphanages, hospitals and care centres. Project WISE, launched in 2019, concentrated the organisation’s approach on public schools in Addis Ababa and Kolkata, later adding Bahir Dar in Ethiopia.
The shift was significant because many development programmes operate through selected demonstration sites. Splash instead defined coverage across a municipal school system as the unit of work. According to its 2024 annual report, core water filtration, drinking and handwashing infrastructure had been completed in every government-funded school in Addis Ababa by the end of that year, including 38 schools that opened after the programme began. Splash’s Ethiopia page states that Phase I reached 537 target schools serving about 650,000 students across Addis Ababa and Bahir Dar.
Those figures are organisational reporting rather than independent verification of every site’s current service level. They describe installations and programme reach, while long-term performance depends on water supply, soap, repairs, budgets and school management after construction. Splash says its intended endpoint is institutional ownership, with government maintenance systems and supply chains replacing continuing day-to-day dependence on the organisation.
The distinction between installed infrastructure and sustained service is central to the wider WASH sector. A school can have a tap or toilet without meeting the Joint Monitoring Programme definition of a basic service if water is unavailable, a toilet is not functional or private, or a handwashing point lacks soap. Citywide claims can therefore be assessed in several ways, including physical coverage, daily functionality, use and health or educational outcomes.
A trial produced mixed results
An independent evaluation in Addis Ababa provides unusually detailed evidence about part of the model. Researchers led by the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine conducted a cluster-randomised controlled trial in 60 public primary schools during the 2021/22 academic year. The study enrolled 6,229 pupils aged seven to 16. Half of the schools received water storage and filtration improvements, drinking and handwashing stations, and behaviour-change promotion during the evaluation period; the remaining schools were assigned to a waitlist control group.
The peer-reviewed study, published in BMC Medicine in September 2024, found a 16 per cent relative reduction in the odds of pupils reporting respiratory illness during the previous seven days in intervention schools compared with control schools. The confidence interval reached 1.00 and the authors described the impact as borderline. The trial found no evidence of an effect on pupil-reported diarrhoea or roll-call absence. It also recorded a small increase in menstrual-care self-efficacy.
The evaluation did not test the complete programme as originally planned. Sanitation improvements were managed by the Addis Ababa education authorities on a separate timetable and were not delivered to intervention schools until after the study period. The research therefore assessed water, handwashing and behaviour-change elements rather than a fully implemented package that included upgraded toilets. It also took place during the COVID-19 pandemic, a context the authors identified when interpreting respiratory outcomes.
These findings complicate a simple success narrative without negating the infrastructure achievement. Over one academic year, the trial found a borderline reduction in the odds of one reported health outcome, while finding no evidence of effects on its other primary outcomes. The researchers concluded that future research could examine the relationship between WASH-related illness, absence and other educational outcomes. Their results also provide a baseline against which claims about scale and durability can be examined.
Expansion raises questions of finance and durability
Splash is applying lessons from Phase I through Project WISE Phase II. Its 2024 annual report says feasibility work considered seven East African countries and selected Malawi, Tanzania and Zambia as the initial focus. In March 2025, the organisation said the phase would cover public schools in eight cities across the three countries, working with national and local governments and local partners.
The expansion changes the test facing the model. Replication across different water systems, public budgets and administrative structures involves more than repeating a standard design. School enrolment, water affordability, procurement, construction quality, maintenance capacity and national standards differ between cities and countries. Splash’s strategy places government co-financing and local delivery at the centre of its response, but evidence about long-term functionality in the new settings will require implementation and follow-up.
For children in urban poverty, school WASH services sit at the intersection of health, education, dignity and public infrastructure. Splash International’s record demonstrates the scale that a geographically concentrated programme can report. The Addis Ababa trial, however, shows why coverage, use and outcomes remain separate measures. Phase II will provide a further test of whether a citywide model can retain functioning services and measurable benefits as responsibility moves towards public institutions and local partners.
Further information:
• Splash 2024 Annual Report, supports the reported Addis Ababa infrastructure milestone, cumulative reach and Phase II country selection. https://splash.org/assets/Splash_2024AnnualReport.pdf
• Splash, Project WISE, describes the programme model, its school-based components and its approach to government partnership. https://splash.org/our-work/project-wise
• BMC Medicine, Impact of a school-based water and hygiene intervention on child health and school attendance in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, provides the peer-reviewed trial methods, results and limitations. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12916-024-03558-x
• WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme, Progress on drinking water, sanitation and hygiene in schools 2015–2023, provides the global monitoring context and definitions of basic WASH services in schools. https://washdata.org/report/jmp-2024-wash-schools
