Theme

Sustainable Development Goal 6 has a target to eliminate open defecation and ensure everyone has access to sustainable sanitation services by 2030, “paying special attention to the needs of women and girls and those in vulnerable situations”.
World Toilet Day 2019 is drawing attention to those people being left behind without sanitation and the social, economic and environmental consequences of inaction.
A toilet is not just a toilet. It’s a life-saver, dignity-protector and opportunity-maker.
We must expand access to safe toilets and leave no one behind. Because whoever you are, wherever you are, sanitation is your human right.

Advocating sustainable sanitation
How much will ‘sanitation for all’ cost?
Sanitation success stories
Regulating sanitation services as a public good
Read the article here.
Learning from history: Sanitation for prosperity
Living in a fragile world: The impact of climate change on the sanitation crisis
State of the World’s Sanitation report
For the first time WHO and UNICEF bring together the data on sanitation coverage and investment, and how it impacts health, economies, and the environment. Citing evidence on what works from successful countries and global guidelines, WHO and UNICEF call for strong government leadership and investment in resilient sanitation services. The report charts an ambitious way forward following the SDG6 global acceleration framework themes of governance, financing, capacity development, data and information, and innovation to achieve universal access to safe sanitation.
The report State of the World’s Sanitation: An urgent call to transform sanitation for better health, environments, economies and societies, was launched on World Toilet Day and is available here.
Photo Credit: © UNICEF/UN0348942/Modola
Just launched: Connecting the Unconnected report
There is a reoccurring challenge faced in cities around the world where, despite the immediate proximity of trunk sewerage infrastructure, too many households choose not to connect to the sewers for various social, economic or related reasons. In addition, service providers continue to focus their attention and their resources on the design and the construction of the trunk infrastructure, using approaches that don’t always meet the needs of burgeoning cities with their diverse socio-economic neighborhoods. The focus on infrastructure and not on connections affects access to sewerage services. So, even though progress has been made, challenges remain. For example, in Latin America and the Caribbean, even though about 170 million people were connected to sewerage systems in the last two decades, at least 28 percent of the region’s urban residents are still not connected to the sewer lines that run close to their houses.
The funds sunk into trunk sewerage infrastructure and the related wastewater treatment plants cannot realize the full public health and environmental benefits which they were designed to produce if all of the intended properties are not connected. And this means that the disease burden due to poor sanitation remains high and those not connected to sewerage or to another safely managed sanitation system are more likely to suffer from illnesses such as diarrhea and to lose days of work because of those illnesses.
A new World Bank report look at the reasons why so many households still get left behind and remain unconnected to existing or new sewer networks. Based on a review of good practices from around the world, the report outlines the considerations that should be made in developing a successful sewerage connection program. The report also provides an overview and lessons from global experiences in order to identify the elements that can help maximize connections to sewers, including for low-income households, while drawing on the principles of the Citywide Inclusive Sanitation approach.
The report CONNECTING THE UNCONNECTED: Approaches for Getting Households to Connect to Sewerage Networks, was launched on World Toilet Day.
The world can no longer under-prioritise sanitation, and this is why
COVID-19 and the human rights to water and sanitation
Modernizing wastewater treatment in Sri Lanka
Sewerage management is more than just ‘flushing it away’ – waste must be contained, treated and disposed of safely. In a blog by the International Water Management Institute (IWMI), Andreas Ulrich explains that in many countries ageing infrastructure and growing urban populations are creating mounting pressure on systems that in many cases were designed in the early twentieth century. In Sri Lanka a joint initiative between the Government, the World Bank and IWMI is aiming to formulate a pathway to sustainably improve wastewater treatment and subsequent resource recovery.
Read the full blog post here.
Colour my human rights to water and sanitation
IWRA webinar on Sustainable Sanitation and Climate Change
Turning human waste into an economic resource
Read more here.
Catalysing citywide sanitation for all
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