• WaterAid joins WSUP, World Bank and leading academics in urging donors, policymakers and planners not to neglect shared sanitation • Where private household toilets aren’t yet an option, safe, well-managed shared toilets are a crucial step to further improvement Funding for safe, shared toilets in fast-growing developing-world cities is at risk of neglect from donors, policymakers and planners, a new journal article authored by sanitation specialists, senior economists and leading academics has warned.
The UN Sustainable Development Goal 6 aspires to providing access to safely-managed sanitation for all by 2030.
But a senior group of economists and policy analysts have warned of the risk that governments will interpret this as the only acceptable standard.
An editorial carried in the Journal of Water, Sanitation and Hygiene for Development calls on governments, policymakers and donors to recognise the role that high-quality shared toilets can play in addressing the urgent needs of those living in dense slums, where a toilet in every household is not often an option, and warn against dwindling investment, planning and delivery of this essential step toward better health and dignity for the urban poor.
WaterAid senior policy analyst Andrés Hueso said: “We know that in this globalised world, one slum’s waste problem quickly becomes a much wider issue, as demonstrated during the crises of Ebola and Zika, both of which were exacerbated due to poor sanitation.
“Despite the fact that shared toilets are not currently counted as safely managed toilets in the SDG framework, we need to maintain incentives for governments, entrepreneurs and communities to invent, invest in and run appropriate shared toilet solutions as a stepping stone towards other solutions.
We also need to work on developing practical ways to distinguish well-managed shared toilets from those which simply do not pass the mark.
We need those to become mainstream and inspire other actors to turn uninspiring assets into symbols of modernity.” Poor sanitation increases the risk of illness, particularly in slums and informal settlements which are common at the edges of many fast-growing cities in the developing world.
Among them is Goal 6 to ensure access to water and decent toilets for all.
To read the original journal article, please click here: https://doi.org/10.2166/washdev.2017.023 For more information contact WaterAid staff listed in the original press release.