Global Issues
Global health issues and solutions
Pronali is a midwife helping mothers deliver babies safely in rural Bangladesh. Photo: Sumon Corraya/Caritas Bangladesh
4.2 billion
people do not have safely managed sanitation services.
3 billion
people lack basic handwashing facilities.
Toefuata’iga fills up her water bottle from a Samoan primary school’s drinking water tank. Photo: Caritas Australia.
Effects of poor health
Health and access to affordable health care have a direct affect on all aspects of a person’s life. In vulnerable, marginalised communities, where living conditions are already challenging, this can result in:
- Shorter life expectancies.
- Higher rates of infant mortality.
- Deaths from preventable or treatable diseases.
- Higher rates of disability.
- Lower educational attainment, interruptions to schooling and poorer educational outcomes.
- Loss of income and higher rates of unemployment.
Lack of food security
Malnutrition can be caused by a lack of food security or unsustainable food production.
Lack of Infrastructure
Lack of proper health care infrastructure or insufficient health care professionals.
Poor Sanitation
Poor sanitation and hygiene facilities and lack of awareness.
Environmental Change
Environmental change, natural disasters, and the absence of effective risk management systems.
What is WASH?
WASH is an acronym that stands for ‘water, sanitation, hygiene’. Universal, affordable and sustainable access to WASH is a key public health issue within international development.
"Access to WASH" includes safe water, adequate sanitation and hygiene education. Improving access to WASH services can improve health, life expectancy, student learning, gender equality and other important issues of international development. This can reduce illness and death, and also affect poverty reducton and socio-economic development.
Challenges include providing services to urban slums, improper management of water distribution systems, failures of WASH systems over time, providing equitable access to drinking water supply and gender issues.
Thandolwayo (9) from Tanzania washes her face from the new water pipe, installed in her village with the support of Caritas Australia. Before the pipe was installed, Thandolwayo and other members of the community had to walk over 5km one way at least once a day down a steep and dangerous hill to collect dirty water from the Gweyi river. She would often get sick and miss school from illness and being tired from collecting water. Photo credit: Richard Wainwright/Caritas Australia.
Halima (right) showing her children how to use a hand washing station in her Rohingya refugee camp in Cox’s Bazaar region of Bangladesh in August 2020. Photo credit: Inmanuel Chayan Biswas/Caritas Bangladesh.
What are we doing to improve health around the world?
Our international development programs recognise that good health is essential to a community’s socioeconomic progress and the wellbeing of its people. We work closely with communities in Africa, the Middle East, Asia, the Pacific Islands and Australia to drive positive change in the lives of their people.
We work with our local partners on the ground, through training, awareness-building and long-term programs to support local communities to thrive.
Our stories of change
Your support helps midwives deliver births safely in rural Bangladesh
In remote villages in Bangladesh, access to basic health services is scarce. For many women, giving birth without trained support is a dangerous reality – one that puts their lives, and those of their babies at risk.
Before her training, there was not a single qualified midwife in Pronali's village. Now, Pronali – a mother of two herself, provides vital antenatal check-ups, safe deliveries and health education – saving lives and building a healthier future for her community.
Pronali, a trained rural midwife. with members of her community in rural Bangladesh. Photo: Sumon Corraya/Caritas Bangladesh
