More than 2.5 billion people – nearly 40% of the world’s population – lack access to good sanitation such as clean water to wash with or proper toilets. Without such basic facilities, illnesses due to diarrhoea go unchecked – killing 2,000 children around the world every day.
More taps and toilets
The problem is most acute in Africa. In sub-Saharan countries for instance, one in three people do not have access to any form of sanitation – be it a tap or a toilet.
Across the continent, diarrhoea is the leading killer of children under five years old, causing more deaths than AIDS, malaria and measles combined. But there are very simple solutions to this problem – clean water, hygienic toilets and effective handwashing.
In Nigeria alone, 200,000 children died from diarrhoea in 2008. We will make sure 5.5 million people there have better access to the facilities they need and can wash their hands – proven to be the most effective way to prevent disease. By getting rid of human waste safely we can reduce diarrhoea by more than a third.
At a global level we are also working with international partners to raise the profile of sanitation and speed up progress through the Sanitation and Water for All: A Global Framework for Action.
Handwashing and hygiene
The simple message to wash hands with soap is relatively cheap to spread, but priceless in terms of the millions of lives it can save. If we are to cement the gains we make in providing more taps and toilets, we must also promote good hygiene.
In poor countries, washing hands with soap at key points of the day – before food preparation and after using the toilet – could halve the likelihood of diarrhoea, reduce acute respiratory infections by up to a quarter, and combat worm infestations, trachoma and infectious skin diseases.
Closer to home, the hygiene alarms raised by swine flu only serve to reinforce the message of hand-washing with soap.
The knock-on benefits of heeding that message are huge – millions more children will live beyond five years old, they will become stronger and will also be able to complete a basic education in school.
Reducing risks for girls and women
Lack of sanitation poses an extra threat to girls and women. Going to toilet in the open puts them at danger of being assaulted.
South Asia has the largest number of people on the planet who have to go to the toilet outside. We will work to reduce these risks in countries like Nepal, where we are ensuring around 60,000 girls and women have access to safe toilets by 2015.