According to a new study released by the United Nations on Thursday, out of the planet’s seven billion people, six have got mobile phones while only 4.5 have access to proper sanitation and can actually use toilets or latrines.
At a press conference announcing the report, U.N. Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson announced the organization is launching an effort to halve the number of those without access by the end of 2015.
The countries where open defecation is most widely practiced are the same countries with the highest numbers of child deaths under the age of five, high levels of under-nutrition and poverty, and large wealth disparities.
In August 2012, the Bill Gates Foundation began its own effort to “reinvent the toilet” as a way to help curb the number of people around the world without access to sanitary waste disposal.
Since 1990, 1.8 billion people have gotten access to better sanitation. And while that situation is not going to fix itself over night, it's worth drawing attention to.
“We strongly support this effort to increase the focus on sanitation,” said the Deputy Executive Director of the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), Martin Mogwanja, who noted that ending open defecation will contribute to a 36 per cent reduction in diarrhea, which kills three quarters of a million children under five each year.
The UN’s call to action aims to improve hygiene, better manage human waste and water-waste, as well as to completely eliminate the practice of open defecation by 2025.
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