Sanitation is declared a right in South Asia

A candlelit vigil in Delhi commemorated the one million child deaths since the conference in 2006.

Credit: FAN South Asia

24 November 2008

WaterAid welcomes South Asian governments' unprecedented recognition of access to sanitation and safe drinking water as a basic right.

At the third South Asian Conference on Sanitation (SACOSAN) in Delhi, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's opening words "good sanitation should be the birthright of every citizen in South Asia" have made it into the official declaration and are now a national priority.

One million children from South Asia died from preventable diarrhoeal diseases since the last conference two years ago. Around one billion people still live without adequate sanitation in the region with 778 million people still practising open defecation.

Oliver Cumming, Sanitation Policy Officer for WaterAid said:

"South Asian governments' unprecedented recognition of access to sanitation as a basic right is a clear commitment to tackling the regional sanitation crisis. However, in a region where one billion people still lack access, urgent government action is needed so we don't reconvene in 2010 to lament the needless deaths of another million children."

Isha Prasad Bhagwat, WaterAid's Country Representative in India, said:

"Now comes the task of translating the SACOSAN declaration into reality. We're committed to working with the government and all stakeholders to act upon the Prime Minister's words and deliver sanitation as a basic right."

Following a meeting of hundreds of grassroots organisations immediately prior to SACOSAN, WaterAid and its partners have been promoting our own 'civil society declaration' which demands that sanitation be recognised as a right, that sanitation be integrated into health and education policies, and that separate sanitation facilities be provided for girls at school.

WaterAid are delighted that all of our calls have been addressed in the SACOSAN declaration.

Significantly, the declaration commits member states (Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka) to strengthen regional collaboration and promote independent monitoring.

Read more about SACOSAN in WaterAid's blog from Delhi