Sanitation, a wise investment for health, dignity, and development: key messages for the International Year of Sanitation
2008 is the International Year of Sanitation. More than 2.6 billion people - roughly 40 percent of the world’s population - lack what most of us take for granted: a toilet. The Year’s purpose is to raise awareness about this crisis and galvanise action to address it. The Millennium Development sanitation target is to reduce by half the proportion of people without a toilet between 1990 and 2015. Making the target a reality is critical to economic growth, to people’s health, to women’s empowerment, and to environmental sustainability. In fact, better sanitation will further all the Millennium Development Goals. In addition, sanitation is one of the best investments a country can make: on average, every dollar invested yields benefits that can be valued at nine dollars. Expanding sanitation coverage is not rocket-science. We know how to do it - by generating demand, mobilising communities, and appealing to people’s desires for convenience, cleanliness, safety, privacy, pride, and prestige. Business-as-usual won’t work, but with political will, major progress on sanitation is possible - even for the poorest countries.