World Toilet Day conference captures media attention

Credit: WaterAid

19 November is World Toilet Day – a day when the world is reminded that clean toilets are crucial to good health.

WaterAid in Ghana celebrated this year's World Toilet Day through a media campaign highlighting that 2.5 billion people worldwide are still living without access to safe, private toilets.

The campaign saw radio and TV stations dedicating airtime to discussions around access to toilets, especially in urban poor communities. Radio Ghana, the national broadcaster dedicated its daily news commentary to World Toilet Day highlighting sanitation and making calls on stakeholders to contribute to improving access to toilets. Discussion programmes were also held in English and local languages focusing on the key challenges and obstacles in providing sanitation for the poor.

With the slogan "We Deserve Better", the Coalition of NGOs in Water and Sanitation CONIWAS, supported by WaterAid, also organised a press conference to call for more toilets to be made available to poor people emphasising access to clean toilets is a basic human right.

The Head of Policy and Partnerships of WaterAid in Ghana, Joe Lambongang, condemned the slow response of the Governments to instituting measures and ensuring accelerated sanitation coverage. He stressed the role of the media in advocating for change:

"The media has a role as to act as advocates and agents of change and work towards accelerating Ghana's progress towards the Millenium Development Goals. Sanitation is central to the development of all aspects of national life, particularly poverty reduction. If we want to live dignified lives as a people, then we must give attention to sanitation. The media as the fourth arm of government must help to make this happen."

 The press conference saw a massive participation by over 20 media houses in Accra. CONIWAS took the opportunity to reaffirm its position on the following calls:

• Metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies should enforce the
  building codes that require every house built to have a toilet and to prosecute landlords who default on this. 
• The Government of Ghana should implement its international commitments such as the eThewieni and Africa Union declarations.
• The political party that wins the December elections should pursue
  strategic policies on sanitation to accelerate progress especially in poor
  urban and rural communities.
• The Ministry of Local Government Rural Development and Environment should set up a task force that will clearly define the indicators, terminologies and minimal standards for measuring what constitutes improved toilet and develop a time frame for all data collection institutions to adhere to these indicators.
• All sector stakeholders should continue to explore the Community Led Total
  Sanitation (CLTS) approach to latrine promotion as a viable source of
  sanitation improvement.

Read Emmanuel Addai's World Toilet Day statement for Radio Ghana ( Word 28Kb)