UN targets lack of sanitation for 2.5b
Source: Agencies |
March 23, 2013, Saturday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
THE United Nations has said 6 billion of the world's 7 billion people have mobile phones - but only 4.5 billion have access to toilets or latrines.
So the UN is launching a global campaign to improve sanitation for 2.5 billion people.
UN Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson called their plight "a silent disaster" that reflects extreme poverty and huge inequalities in the world.
Eliasson said the issue must be addressed immediately for the world to meet the UN goal of halving the proportion of people without access to sanitation by the end of 2015.
The UN said action must include eliminating by 2025 the practice of open defecation, which perpetuates disease.
The number of people resorting to open defecation has decreased by 271 million since 1990, but it is still practiced by 1.1 billion people, or 15 percent of the world's population, the UN said. It is one of the main causes of diarrhea, which results in the death of more than 750,000 children under the age of 5 every year, the UN said.
Eliasson said 22 countries, including Brazil, India and China, account for more than 80 percent of open defecation in the world.
Martin Mogwanja, deputy executive director of the UN children's agency UNICEF, said at the present rate of progress, the UN sanitation goal will be reached in 2075 instead of 2015, which is unacceptable.
So the UN is launching a global campaign to improve sanitation for 2.5 billion people.
UN Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson called their plight "a silent disaster" that reflects extreme poverty and huge inequalities in the world.
Eliasson said the issue must be addressed immediately for the world to meet the UN goal of halving the proportion of people without access to sanitation by the end of 2015.
The UN said action must include eliminating by 2025 the practice of open defecation, which perpetuates disease.
The number of people resorting to open defecation has decreased by 271 million since 1990, but it is still practiced by 1.1 billion people, or 15 percent of the world's population, the UN said. It is one of the main causes of diarrhea, which results in the death of more than 750,000 children under the age of 5 every year, the UN said.
Eliasson said 22 countries, including Brazil, India and China, account for more than 80 percent of open defecation in the world.
Martin Mogwanja, deputy executive director of the UN children's agency UNICEF, said at the present rate of progress, the UN sanitation goal will be reached in 2075 instead of 2015, which is unacceptable.
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