Sewage, septic tanks and social inequalities: reflections on World Toilet Day 2014
by ODI Global
Today is World Toilet Day – a chance to reflect on our progress in meeting this most basic of human needs, but also to consider the obstacles that remain.
First some good news: since 1990, well over 2 billion people have gained access to a safe and private toilet. The bad news, however, is that there are still 2.5 billion people –one third of the world’s population – who do not have access to such a ‘luxury’. Shockingly, a billion people – nearly 14% of the world’s population – have to defecate in the open.
This basic affront to human dignity affects women and girls the most, not just because it contributes to ill-health, but also in terms of safety and missed schooling. Around half the girls in sub-Saharan Africa who drop out of primary school do so because of poor water and sanitation facilities(pdf).
Clearly gender matters, but other inequalities affect access to sanitation too: wealth, where people live (especially rural vs urban), ethnicity, religion and a host of other factors that determine people’s ability to shape their futures. And there are massive regional disparities: three quarters of all the people who have to defecate in the open live in only five countries: India (accounting for 60% of the total), Indonesia, Pakistan, Nigeria and Ethiopia.
Inequalities in access also lie behind the global water crisis, as researchers from ODI highlighted earlier this year. The toxic combination of unsafe water and poor sanitation account for 3.4 million deaths each year. In other words, poor sanitation claims more lives than malaria, and puts the current Ebola crisis – distressing and destructive though it is – in harsh perspective.
What of the road ahead? Our photo story highlights the challenges, but also some of the solutions that people are developing to improve their lives through better sanitation.
By Beatrice Mosello, Mariana Matoso and Julian Doczi from ODI's Water Policy Programme.
Find out more about their work at www.odi.org/programmes/water-policy
