What Goes in a WASH NFI Kit? A Bill of Quantities for Field Teams

Tony Miller
Aug 24
7 min read

The reference bill of quantities is UNICEF's WASH and Dignity Kit, First Response (S9901153): 12 items plus a usage leaflet, packed to cover five families, 25 people, for one month. Per family that is two 10-litre collapsible water containers, one 14-litre lidded bucket, 12 bars of soap and one 1.5 kg pack of laundry detergent, per the UNICEF WASH and Dignity Kit guidance.

Which standard should you build a WASH NFI kit from?

Build from a published kit, not from a wish list drafted in a meeting. Two references cover almost every case in East and Central Africa. UNICEF's WASH and Dignity Kit, First Response is the one to start from because its contents are fixed, coded and freight-costed, and because UNICEF revised them after a review of country-office experience, per the UNICEF guidance note. The IFRC and ICRC standard products catalogue uses the same sizing convention, listing hygienic parcels for one person and for five persons over one month, and states plainly that contents need adapting to local context.

Both are designed for the first phase of a response, within eight weeks of onset. UNICEF is explicit that the global kit is a last resort where local procurement is not possible, and that locally procured kits should still meet Sphere standards. That is the right order of preference, and it is why the bill of quantities below matters more than the box: what you are buying is a specification you can hold a supplier to.

What is the line-by-line bill of quantities?

This is the published content of the WASH and Dignity Kit, First Response, per the UNICEF guidance. The standard pack is the five-family version; UNICEF notes a one-family pack exists but does not recommend it because of the higher logistics cost per household.

|------|---------------|:----------:|:-----------------------------:|

| Water container | PVC/PE, 10 litres, collapsible | 2 | 10 |

| Bucket | HDPE, with lid, 14 litres | 1 | 5 |

| Soap | Toilet bar, approx. 110 g, wrapped | 12 | 60 |

| Water purification tablets | NaDCC, 33 mg tabs, PAC-50 | 6 | 30 |

| Torch | Handheld, self-powered | 1 | 5 |

| Child potty | Plastic | 1 | 5 |

| Multipurpose cloth | Cotton, 1 m x 1.5 m | 2 | 10 |

| Reusable menstrual pads | 2 pad holders, 2 straight pads, 3 winged pads, 1 pouch | 2 | 10 |

| Sanitary pads | Disposable, with wings, min. 20 per package | 2 | 10 |

| Whistle | Metal, with cord lanyard | 1 | 5 |

| Underwear | Female panties, S x3, M x3, L x3 | 1 | 5 |

| Laundry detergent | 1.5 kg concentrated washing powder | 1 | 5 |

| Guidance on kit use | Paper flyer | 1 | 5 |

One line deserves a hard look before you raise a purchase order. The tablet line reads "33 mg tabs, PAC-50" with a quantity of six, so confirm in writing whether six means six packs of fifty or six strips. That single ambiguity is the difference between a month of household treatment and a fortnight, and it is worth resolving at quotation stage rather than at the distribution point.

Why these quantities, and where they strain

Each line traces back to a standard. Sphere sets basic water needs at 7.5 to 15 litres per person per day and requires at least two clean 10 to 20 litre collection containers per household, narrow-necked or covered against recontamination, per the Sphere WASH standards. The kit's two containers meet the count. They do not meet it comfortably.

Do the arithmetic. A family of five at the Sphere minimum needs 37.5 to 75 litres a day. Two 10-litre containers carry 20 litres per trip, which means two to four collection trips a day at a water point that Sphere allows to sit up to 500 metres away with up to 30 minutes of queueing. In a Jonglei or Upper Nile site during the dry season, that is a large part of someone's day, usually a woman's or a girl's. Where the water point is distant or the queue is long, specify 20-litre containers instead of 10-litre and accept the extra freight volume. That is our standing recommendation across South Sudan, and it is the single most useful deviation from the standard kit.

The rest of the list is sound. Twelve 110 g soap bars per family per month is roughly two and a half bars per person, enough for handwashing rather than bathing alone. The detergent and the cotton cloths exist so soiled clothing and bedding can be washed, which matters far more in an outbreak than it sounds. The child potty covers safe disposal of children's faeces, and the torch and whistle are protection items: water collection does not stop at dusk.

What changes for a cholera kit?

Weight shifts decisively towards water treatment and verification. During an outbreak the target is not a general one. The Global Task Force on Cholera Control's 2024 field manual directs responders to chlorinate drinking water to 0.5 mg/L free residual chlorine at point of use, and its household disinfection guidance works to 0.2 to 0.5 mg/L at point of use and 1 mg/L at source. The same manual instructs teams visiting patients' homes and neighbours to deliver soap, household water treatment products and ORS as a package.

Three practical changes follow. First, add free residual chlorine test kits, because a tablet handed over is not a residual measured. Peer-reviewed work in South Sudan refugee camps found that 40 to 58% of households drawing from chlorinated tapstands had no detectable residual chlorine in stored water, and that standard doses could not hold 0.2 mg/L 24 hours after distribution, per the Bulletin of the World Health Organization. Second, raise the tablet quantity rather than the household count, and brief on redosing stored water. Third, increase soap, since handwashing does the work between distributions. South Sudan's outbreak declared in October 2024 reached nearly 100,000 suspected cases and more than 1,500 deaths across 55 counties, per WHO AFRO. Kits sized for one month were reordered many times.

What changes for a flood kit?

Turbidity changes the product, not just the quantity. NaDCC tablets are a clear-water tool: an Aquatabs 67 mg tablet treats 8 to 10 litres of clear water in 30 minutes, and cloudy water must be filtered through clean cloth first, per the CDC and Medentech instruction sheet. Flood water rarely clears with a cloth. Substitute or supplement with P&G Purifier of Water, which treats 10 litres per sachet by coagulation, flocculation and disinfection in about 30 minutes and removes the Giardia and Cryptosporidium that resist chlorine alone, per the Center for Safe Drinking Water.

Storage has to grow too, because flood-displaced households lose containers along with everything else, and because a settling and decanting step needs two vessels rather than one. Renewed flooding affected around 1.3 million people and displaced roughly 335,000 in 2025, with Jonglei worst hit, per OCHA South Sudan.

What the bill of quantities does not tell you

It does not tell you the kit runs out. The consumables cover one month, and UNICEF instructs country offices to plan and procure the second-phase response in parallel with the first, per the guidance note. In practice the replenishment order is the one that slips, because the emergency that justified the first order has stopped generating headlines by the time the second is due. Build month two into the same tender.

Nor does it tell you the landed reality: what volume 500 kits occupy, whether the tablets clear customs as a chemical, and how many trucks the pack size implies on a road that closes in the rains. Kit lists are written in New York and Geneva; they are paid for at the Nimule border and the Juba warehouse door. Our WASH product range is stocked and quoted against these specifications, so the line items on your bill of quantities match the line items on the delivery note.

Frequently asked questions

How many people does one WASH NFI kit cover?

The standard UNICEF WASH and Dignity Kit, First Response covers five families, 25 people, for one month; a one-family version exists but is not recommended because of higher logistics cost, per the UNICEF guidance.

How many water containers should a household get?

At least two clean collection containers of 10 to 20 litres each, narrow-necked or covered, per the Sphere WASH standards; choose 20 litres where the water point is far or queues are long.

How much soap goes in a family hygiene kit?

The UNICEF kit specifies 12 wrapped toilet bars of approximately 110 g per family per month, which is 60 bars in the five-family pack, per the UNICEF guidance.

What should a cholera kit add?

Free residual chlorine test kits, a higher water-treatment quantity and more soap; the Global Task Force on Cholera Control targets 0.5 mg/L free residual chlorine at point of use and pairs household soap with water treatment products and ORS, per its 2024 field manual.

Do water purification tablets work in flood water?

Not on their own; NaDCC tablets treat clear water and cloudy water must be cloth-filtered first, per the CDC and Medentech instruction sheet, so use P&G Purifier of Water for turbid sources, per the Center for Safe Drinking Water.