November 24, 2008
Sanitation is declared a right in South Asia
WaterAid welcomes South Asian governments' unprecedented recognition of access to sanitation and safe drinking water as a basic right.
Credit: WaterAid / Marco Betti
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" made it into the official declaration and are now a national priority.
One million children from South Asia have died from preventable diarrheal 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 organizations immediately prior to SACOSAN, WaterAid and its partners have been promoting our own 'civil society declaration' which demands that sanitation be recognized as a right, that sanitation be integrated into health and education policies, and that separate sanitation facilities be provided for girls at school.
WaterAid is 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 strengthening regional collaboration and promoting independent monitoring.
Read more about SACOSAN in WaterAid's blog from New Delhi
