World Toilet Day: breaking the taboos
World Toilet Day, on 19 November, is about taking action to reach the 2.4 billion people living without a toilet. The theme of World Toilet Day 2016 is toilets and jobs, focusing on how sanitation, or the lack of it, can impact peoples livelihoods. Sanitation is a global development priority.
The Sustainable Development Goals, launched in 2015, include a target to ensure everyone everywhere has access to toilets by 2030.
Toilets play a crucial role in creating a strong economy, as well as improving health and protecting peoples safety and dignity, particularly womens and girls.
The UN and its partners are getting the message out that toilets save lives, increase productivity, create jobs and grow economies.
Top facts
2.4 billion People live without improved sanitation (World Health Organization (WHO)/UNICEF 2015).
One in ten people has no choice but to defecate in the open (WHO/UNICEF 2015).
Diarrhoea caused by poor sanitation and unsafe water kills 315,000 children every year (WAS-Hwatch 2016).
Disease transmission at work mostly caused by poor sanitation and hygiene practices, causes 17% of all workplace deaths (International Labour Organization (ILO) 2003).
Loss of productivity due to illnesses caused by lack of sanitation and poor hygiene practices is estimated to cost many countries up to 5% of GDP (Hutton 2012)
Background
The initiative builds on the strong commitment already made by UN Member States. The Sanitation for All Resolution (A/RES/67/291) was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in July 2013, designating 19 November as World Toilet Day.
The Day is coordinated by UN-Water in collaboration with Governments and relevant stakeholders. World Toilet Day is an opportunity to learn more and take action to tackle the global sanitation crisis.
Secretary-Generals Message for 2016.
World Toilet Day aims to raise awareness and inspire action to tackle the global sanitation crisis a topic often neglected and shrouded in taboos.
This years observance focuses on toilets and jobs and the impact of sanitation -- or the lack of it -- on livelihoods and work environments.
Toilets play a crucial role in creating a strong economy. A lack of toilets at work and at home has severe consequences, including poor health leading to absenteeism, reduced concentration, exhaustion, and decreased productivity. About 17 per cent of all workplace deaths are caused by disease transmission at work.
Access to water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) can make economies grow faster. Approximately $260 billion is lost each year to the effects of poor sanitation and unsafe water. Every dollar invested in water and sanitation leads to $4 in economic returns.
Yet at least 2.4 billion people across the world lack access to toilets and are struggling to stay well, keep their children alive and work towards a better future. Investing in appropriate toilets is especially important for women and girls so that they have private, clean and safe facilities, and are able to manage menstruation or pregnancy safely.
Sustainable development goal 6 calls on the international community to ensure access to toilets by 2030.
Delivering on this basic human right -- the right to water and sanitation -- is good for people, business and the economy. Let us continue working towards a world where everyone, everywhere, has adequate and equitable sanitation.
- Ban Ki-moon
Toilets have the power to transform economies
A lack of toilets at work and at home has severe impacts upon businesses through problems in the workforce: poor health, absenteeism, attrition, reduced concentration, exhaustion, and decreased productivity (Business for Social Responsibility (BSR) 2010).
Meeting the 2015 Millennium Development Goal target of 50% of people having access to sanitation and safe water was estimated to reduce sick days by 322 million every year, representing an annual health sector saving of $7 billion. (Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI), 2005).
Globally, approximately $260 billion is lost each year to the effects of poor sanitation and unsafe water on many aspects of the economy, but most significantly on healthcare (Hutton 2012).
Providing toilets to people in rural areas currently practising open defecation is estimated to result in benefits that exceed costs by between five and seven times (Hutton 2015).
In India, the time spent looking for a toilet or finding somewhere to go in the open costs the economy over $10 billion every year in lost productivity 20% of GDP (World Bank Group 2016).
Diarrhoea caused by unsafe water, poor sanitation and hygiene is linked to 50% of child undernutrition, which can lead to stunted physical and mental development (WHO 2008).
Toilets in the workplace increase productivity
Access levels to toilets in the workplace reflect access levels to toilets in the home. Very little data exists to tell us how many workers dont have access to toilets, but, for instance, only 40% of the urban population in Sub-Saharan Africa has access to a domestic toilet (WHO/UNICEF 2015).
Where toilets are present, a big issue for many workers is the way in which toilet breaks are controlled by the management. If access is restricted, people will hold back the urge to go, and even avoid food and drink to minimise how many times they might need to visit the toilet.
Beyond the inconvenience and discomfort, this can have health impacts, particularly for women, leading to absenteeism and disease (BSR 2010).
Loss of productivity due to illnesses caused by lack of sanitation and poor hygiene practices is estimated to cost many countries up to 5% of GDP (Hutton 2012). In sectors such as the garment industry, the global workforce is 80% female (Business for Social.
Responsibility 2010). Investing in good toilets in workplaces and schools so that women and girls have clean, separate facilities to maintain their dignity, and to manage menstruation or pregnancy safely, can boost what is often referred to as the girl effect: maximising the involvement of half the population in society (Girl Effect 2015).
According to the International Labour Organization (2003), disease transmission accounts for approximately 17% of workplace deaths each year and most of these are a result of poor sanitation and unsafe hygiene practices.
According to a study in the UK, sick days are estimated to cost companies a minimum of $117 per person per day (Braun et al 2014).
In Vietnam, profitability was 7.6% higher in factories where workers expressed greater satisfaction with water, air quality, toilets, canteens and health services provided, holding other factors constant (ILO 2015).
Providing toilets and other
sanitation services creates jobs
The global demand for water and sanitation services is worth over $50 billion (Freedonia 2013), so there is a massive demand waiting to be met.
Treating sanitation provision as a long-term business opportunity, as well as a fulfilment of peoples rights, could help speed up progress and attract investment.
In the 2014 UN-Water Global Analysis and Assessment of Sanitation and Drinking-Water (GLAAS), less than 20% of participating countries have sufficient capacity to meet rural sanitation needs and even fewer of these countries have plans in place to redress this gap (UN-Water, 2014), which requires investments in education, curriculum development, and enabling environments.
Making it easy for people to set up sanitation businesses, as part of a bigger plan, will help entrepreneurs to flourish and could accelerate progress.
Particularly in the towns and cities of lowincome countries, populations are growing fast and their need for toilets and waste removal is already desperate.
Small-scale service providers could play a vital role in getting toilets to people quickly and beginning the transformation of slum areas (WaterAid 2016).
In the EU, there are more than 2.5 million jobs in the wastewater and solid waste management sectors (Ernst and Young 2006).
The International Water Association (2014) assessed the capacity gap for trained water and sanitation professionals to achieve universal water and sanitation access across 15 countries to be over 750,000 individuals.
Removing the stigma from
sanitation work
In 2013, new Indian legislation outlawed the building of any more insanitary toilets and employing people as manual scavengers to clean out human faeces with their bare hands from rudimentary latrines.
The practice will take time to eradicate, but as sanitation improves in India, the government is rehabilitating manual scavengers, training them for alternative livelihoods and providing education for their children (UN India 2014). Placing more value and respect for these tasks would also raise the workers social status.
Source: un.org
