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2008: International Year of Sanitation
This year is an important year for WaterAid. The United Nations has declared 2008 the International Year of Sanitation and throughout it we will be highlighting the scandalous fact that over 2.6 billion people - 40% of the world's population - do not have a safe, clean or private place to go to the toilet; and will be working hard to change this. Sanitation is in crisis. There is compelling evidence that sanitation brings the greatest returns on investment of any development intervention (roughly US$9 for every US$1 spent). Yet it remains one of the most neglected and off-track of the UN Millennium Development Goal targets (agreed by all world governments to halve poverty by 2015). In the developing world, the costs of not investing in sanitation and water are huge - infant deaths, lost work days and missed school are estimated to have an economic cost of at least US$38 billion per year, with sanitation accounting for 92% of this value. And yet the potential returns are so great that sanitation, in effect, pays for itself many times over. Faced with the evidence, governments must act now to tackle this crisis. On page 9 we report how 2008 also marks the 150th anniversary of the 'Great Stink' in London. In 1858 the stench from the lack of sanitation made the River Thames so vile that MPs were forced to act. The resulting expansion of sanitation infrastructure in the 1880s contributed to a 15 year increase in life expectancy in the following four decades, one of the most dramatic health improvements in history. The kind of political action shown in London in 1858 must now be taken across the developing world today. 2008 is the year to make this change. 2.6 billion people need action not words. It's time to make a stink about sanitation. Thank you for your ongoing support, Barbara Frost
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