On world water day, UN announced renewed effort to promote sanitation

Posted by Craig Clarke

on Mar 25, 2013

Greater international cooperation was critical for the security of fragile and finite global water resources, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said during a high-level event in observance of World Water Day and the beginning of the International Year of Water Cooperation.

“We cannot prosper without clean, plentiful freshwater,” Mr. Ban told the General Assembly’s High-level Interactive Dialogue on Water Cooperation. Climate change and growing populations around the world meant that the international community had a responsibility to work to more effectively and efficiently protect and manage water, he said.

Appealing to people around the globe to use water intelligently and not waste it so that all could have their fair share, he said water held the key to sustainable development. Yet one in three people already lived in a country suffering moderate to high water stress, he noted, adding that by 2030, nearly half the global population could be facing water scarcity, with demand outstripping supply by 40 per cent. Competition was also growing between farmers and herders, industry and agriculture, town and country, upstream and downstream, as well as across borders.

To mark World Water Day 2013, United Nations Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson has announced that he is convening, on behalf of the Secretary-General and the UN, a renewed effort to drive progress on sanitation as we head towards the 2015 target date for the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

Of the world’s seven billion people, six billion have mobile phones. Yet only 4.5 billion have access to toilets or latrines - meaning that 2.5 billion people, mostly in rural areas, do not have proper sanitation. Unbelievably, 1.1 billion people still defecate in the open.

“I am determined to energize action that will lead to results,” said Mr. Eliasson. “I am calling on all actors - government, civil society, business and international organizations - to commit to measurable action and to mobilize the resources to rapidly increase access to basic sanitation.

Let’s face it - this is a problem that people do not like to talk about. But it goes to the heart of ensuring good health, a clean environment and
fundamental human dignity for billions of people - and achieving the Millennium Development Goals. With just over a thousand days for action before the 2015 MDG deadline, we have a unique window of opportunity to deliver a generational change.”

Meeting targets, reducing poverty and disease

The MDG target to halve the proportion of people without access to sanitation has helped to raise the profile of the issue, and 1.8 billion people gained access to improved sanitation since 1990, but there is still far to go. By contrast, the MDG target to halve the proportion of people without access to improved sources of water has already been met.

The call to action aims to focus on improving hygiene, changing social norms, better managing human waste and waste-water, and, by 2025, completely eliminating the practice of open defecation, which perpetuates the vicious cycle of disease and entrenched poverty. The countries where open defecation is most widely practiced are the same countries with the highest numbers of under-five child deaths, high levels of under-nutrition and poverty, and large wealth disparities. There are strong gender impacts, as having to go outside their homes to relieve themselves makes women and girls vulnerable to violence, and lack of safe, private toilets at schools is a major impediment to girls’
education.

Doing nothing is costly. Every US$1 spent on sanitation brings a US$5.50 return by keeping people healthy and productive. Poor sanitation, on the other hand, costs countries between 0.5 and 7.2 per cent of their GDP. Some 20
countries, mostly in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, account for over 80 per cent of open defecation in the world.