WHEN NATURE CALLS: Children from Windhoek’s Okahandja Park informal settlement are pictured defecating next to the road, amid a shortage of sanitation facilities in the area. According to World Health Organisation and United Nations Children's Fund’s joint monitoring programme data from 2020, Namibia ranks sixth for the highest rates of open defecation in the world at 47%. The nation’s severely low levels of sanitation stand in stark contrast to the rest of southern Africa, a region where Namibia ranks the worst for sanitation coverage. The country’s rates of open defecation are more than double Angola’s to the north and almost five times higher than that of Botswana or Zambia. PHOTO: JEMIMA BEUKES