#Beginning of #New #Era:
Beginning of New Era:
WorldToiletDay 2014, 19
November
#Dr.ArvindKumar
Does
your town need new public toilets? Are the toilets safe and accessible, clean
and well-maintained? Is there an appropriate ratio of toilets for men and
women, or ‘potty parity’? Discuss about toilets with your local representative
today. According to 2008 estimates, 466 million people lack access to
improved water sources and 1.87 billion people lack access to improved
sanitation in Asia and the Pacific. Unrestrained access to safe and potable
water is vital for human life. Inadequate access to improved sanitation
facilities, coupled with poor hygienic practices, allows diseases to spread,
leading to impoverishment and diminished opportunities. The word “toilet” was
considered a taboo and the sanitation crisis was largely ignored by the media.
In the humanitarian sector, the subject of water and sanitation was bundled
into one agenda called WatSan. This resulted in sanitation being overshadowed
by the more prominent agenda of water, hence sanitation remained neglected
while the area of water (which is equally important) was considered to be
deserving of more attention and action.
The
rapid pace of urbanization will witness about 60% of the world’s population
living in cities by 2020, where supplying water to rapidly expanding population
centres is already an enormous challenge. Since the development of
infrastructure for treatment and reuse of discharged water is often lagging way
behind the withdrawal of fresh water, the contamination level of the resources
still available is inching towards red alert. By pushing the sanitation issue to the
forefront of the global development agenda, sanitation also received a huge
boost when the United Nations declared 2008 as the International Year of Sanitation.
Similar emphasis is needed in India.
#Sanitation #UnitedNations #Wetsan #Population #Opportunities #Facilities #Discharged #Asia #Improverishment
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