June 23, 2011
WaterAid welcomes five-year UN sanitation drive

The UN Secretary-General this week launched an initiative to keep sanitation high on the political agenda and ensure the world meets its targets to improve global sanitation by 2015.

The Sustainable Sanitation: Five-Year Drive to 2015 (5YD) has been welcomed by WaterAid in its efforts to bring together global advocacy work directed at meeting the relevant Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), as well as its links with the flourishing Sanitation and Water for All global partnership.

“Sanitation, alongside the provision of safe, clean water, underpins health, education and livelihoods,” said David Winder, Chief Executive of WaterAid in America, who attended the launch of the initiative at the UN Headquarters in New York.

Diarrheal diseases resulting from inadequate sanitation and dirty water kill 4,000 children across the world every single day.
David Winder, CEO, WaterAid, America

“Two-fifths of the world’s population are being denied this basic human right, having dire consequences on the world’s poorest communities. The diarrheal diseases resulting from inadequate sanitation and dirty water kill 4,000 children across the world every single day. The international community has promised to address this injustice; now it needs to act on these promises.”

The MDGs include a target of halving the proportion of the population without sustainable access to basic sanitation by 2015. With 2.6 billion people still without access to improved sanitation, the target is lagging far behind, and without urgent and concerted action globally, it will be out of reach.

At the current rate of progress, the targets will be not met globally till 2049, and in Sub-Saharan Africa, not till 2206, nearly 200 years too late.

The 5YD continues the spirit of the 2008 International Year for Sanitation and aims to help generate political will and empower communities to develop sustainable sanitation solutions to get the world back on track to meet the MDG sanitation target.



Sanitation and Water for All

Sanitation and Water for All is a global partnership between developing countries, donors, multi-lateral agencies, civil society and other development partners working together to achieve universal and sustainable access to sanitation and drinking water.

WaterAid was fundamental in forming the partnership, which was launched at the world’s first ever High Level Meeting on water and sanitation last April. It provides a results-oriented framework for action in support of a vision for everyone in the world to have access to sanitation and drinking water.

WaterAid ensured 5YD incorporated this initiative into its mission. The 5YD resolution notes “the efforts of the Sanitation and Water for All partnership, acknowledges the successes achieved through the community-led total sanitation approach” and recognizes “the efforts of countries that are participating in all relevant voluntary initiatives related to water and sanitation, including the Sanitation and Water for All partnership”.