A report (.pdf), released this week by UNICEF during the Dubai International Humanitarian Aid & Development (DIHAD) conference, documents the challenges many schoolchildren in developing countries face in accessing safe drinking water and sanitation, United Press International reports (4/6).

According to a UNICEF press release, the report finds that “[i]n 60 countries in the developing world, more than half of primary schools have no adequate water facilities and nearly two thirds lack adequate sanitation.”

“Millions of children in the developing world go to schools which have no drinking water or clean latrines – basic things that many of us take for granted,” Sigrid Kaag, UNICEF regional director for the Middle East and North Africa, said during the launch of the report. “Every child has the right to be in a school that offers safe water, healthy sanitation and hygiene education,” Kaag added (4/5).

Produced in partnership with the WHO and NGOs, the report also finds “1.5 million children under the age of five die every year of diarrhoea due to unsafe water, inadequate sanitation and lack of hygiene,” according to the U.N. News Centre. “Better water, sanitation and hygiene – collectively known as WASH – could reverse the trend of nearly 300 million school days being missed worldwide due to diarrhoea, it states. Improved hygiene will lead to less risk of disease, which in turn will result in stepped up school attendance and ultimately nations’ growth,” according to the article (4/5).

“Providing WASH in schools will help keep the promise of meeting the Millennium Development Goals of universal access to primary education, reducing child mortality and halving the proportion of people without access to safe water and basic sanitation,” Kaag said in the UNICEF press release (4/5).