We have less than five years to reach the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) sanitation target to halve the proportion of
people living without basic sanitation by the year 2015. The Joint Monitoring Programme of UNICEF and WHO reported in March of this year that progress on sanitation
actually slowed between 2006 and 2008. This, despite the fact that, extending safe sanitation facilities is neither prohibitively expensive, nor technologically
unattainable. That 2.6 billion people continue to live without safe sanitation facilities is unacceptable.
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World Toilet Day, 19 November, is a time to reflect poignantly on the sheer number of people who still do not have access to adequate sanitation around the world. From a moral and humanitarian perspective, this is unacceptable - hundreds of children under five die each day from entirely preventable water-related diseases; women and young girls are attacked and raped as they try to find a safe place to defecate; teenage girls are denied total access to higher education through lack of toilet facilities. This is why the UN has recognised access to adequate sanitation as a human right.
Increasingly, though, it is being recognised that there are very real benefits and reasons beyond moral obligation and human survival. It is clear that sanitation not only saves lives, but also makes lives better. There are financial gains to be realised through ending open defecation and ensuring adequate sanitation, at the individual, community and national level.
Download the Sanitation Drive to 2015 Statement Download the Sanitation Drive to 2015 Postcard to Politicians! Download the Sanitation Drive to 2015, World Toilet Day powerpoint for Policy Makers Download the Sanitation Drive to 2015, World Toilet Day powerpoint for Communities |
Launch
Drive to 2015 Endorsements
UN Water
Sanitation and the 
Millenium Development Goals
Key Contacts
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