Mobilize Member States under the UN System-Wide Strategy for Water and Sanitation.
The theme of World Toilet Day 2024 is “Sanitation for Peace”, highlighting the essential role of safe toilets and sanitation systems in building a fairer, healthier and more peaceful world.
The Permanent Missions of Singapore, India, Senegal, and South Africa, with UN-Water and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), are co-hosting the event to promote World Toilet Day and its global campaign - “Toilets: A Place for Peace” - as part of overall efforts to advocate faster action to improve and protect people’s access to safely managed sanitation.
The 2024 World Toilet Day event will be used to kick-start robust discussion and advocacy initiatives on climate resilient sanitation, and mobilize Member States under the UN System-Wide Strategy for Water and Sanitation.
The event’s objectives are to:
Create awareness on climate resilient sanitation as a requirement of a peaceful and dignified life.
Generate momentum for sustained political and financial support to accelerate progress on safely managed and climate resilient sanitation towards achieving Sustainable Development Goal 6.2 targets.
Identify ways to advance sanitation within the UN system.
Attendees will include Permanent Missions, experts from the UN and internatinal organizations, private sector representatives and donors.
The event will take place on Tuesday 19 November 2024, 10:00 – 12:00 EST, at the UN HQ, New York.
Highlighting the importance of toilets for health, hygiene, and safety. Open defecation poses a serious risk to public health as it can contaminate sources of drinking water.
This contamination can lead to the spread of diseases such as cholera, diarrhea, and dysentery. Also people — particularly women and girls who practice open defecation — experience feelings of shame, loss of personal dignity, and increased safety risks.
Since 2000, the number of people who practice open defecation has reduced by 68 percent. Still, around 420 million people, that is 5 percent of the global population, are still defecating in fields, forests, bodies of water or other open spaces.
Open defecation is most concentrated in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. However, there has been marked shift in proportions: 67 percent of people practicing open defecation used to reside in South Asia (mainly India) and 17 percent in Sub-Saharan Africa in 2000. But today, 44 percent are in South Asia and 47 percent are in Sub-Saharan Africa.
November 19 is the World Toilet Day highlighting the importance of toilets for health, hygiene, and safety. Open defecation poses a serious
Share your experiences of how sanitation affects groundwater.
SANITATION FOR ALL TO 2030: In the run up to World Toilet Day on 19 November 2022, share your experiences of how sanitation affects groundwater. Join millions of people in conversations across the world.
Take action – become the most important element of the World Water Day campaign. Start, join and follow #WorldWaterDay conversations and rai
Struggling to meet the increased demands of wastewater collection and treatment.
In low-and middle-income countries, small towns are growing rapidly and struggling to meet the increased demands of wastewater collection and treatment. To avert public health crises and continued environmental degradation, small towns are actively seeking safely managed sanitation solutions, appropriate for people.
In low-and middle-income countries, small towns are growing rapidly and struggling to meet the increased demands of wastewater collection an
Wastewater treatment and reuse: a guide for small towns
Sabuhene school in northwestern Tanzania never used to be the automatic choice for parents. Everyone was concerned about the safety of the pit latrines and the fragile buildings over them. To make matters worse, 700 pupils had to share eight toilets, with children missing lessons while waiting in line. The facilities provided no safety, dignity or privacy.
In 2019, the toilets collapsed. Using parental donations, the school began construction of a more permanent, improved toilet building. Then, with the support of the World Bank’s International Development Association (IDA), the Tanzania Sustainable Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Program (SRWSSP) brought the toilets to completion in 2021.
Now, there are 16 student toilets, split evenly between boys and girls, including accessible toilets for people with disabilities, and two for teachers. The result has been game-changing in terms of pupils’ performance.
Read about the impact of the new toilets on student life here.
In Tanzania, around 57 percent of schools have no functional hand washing facilities and almost 40 percent have no water supply in the premi
Progress on drinking-water, sanitation and hygiene in schools.
Six years into the SDG period, the world is not on track to achieve universal access to basic WASH in schools by 2030. Achieving universal coverage requires a 14x increase in current rates of progress on basic drinking water, a 3x increase in progress on basic sanitation, and a 5x increase in progress on basic hygiene services.
The World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Joint Monitoring Programme for Water Supply, Sanitation and Hygiene (JMP) produces internationally comparable estimates of progress on drinking water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) and is responsible for global monitoring of the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) targets related to WASH.
Read the Progress on drinking-water, sanitation and hygiene in schools: 2000-2021 Data update here.
Providing universal access (>99%) to basic WASH in schools by 2030 requires a 14x increase in current rates of progress on basic drinking wa
Today, 3.6 billion people are still living with poor quality toilets that ruin their health and pollute their environment.
Inadequate sanitation systems spread human waste into rivers, lakes and soil, contaminating the water resources under our feet.
Safely managed sanitation protects groundwater from human waste pollution.
Everyone must have access to a toilet connected to a sanitation system that effectively removes and treats human waste.
The link between sanitation and groundwater cannot be overlooked.
This World Toilet Day, let’s make the the invisible visible.
World Toilet Day - 19 November World Toilet Day celebrates toilets and raises awareness of the 3.6 billion people living without access to s
Ensure equitable access to decent and dignified toilets for all.
Video: Who cares about toilets in health-care facilities? Why do we celebrate World Toilet Day on 19 November?Because 3.6 billion people do
WHO/Europe cares about toilets in health-care facilities to ensure equitable access to decent and dignified toilets for all, and to ensure safe toilets for all.
The World Toilet Association considers toilets to be essential to the proper disposal of waste and water management. With other international organizations, however, the subject of toilets is often eclipsed by broader social issues such as 'sanitation' or 'public health.' Considered a taboo topic in everyday parlance, toilets are typically alluded to, rather than referred to directly. By emphasizing the central and crucial role toilets play in daily life, proper sanitation and hygiene, the WTA seeks to propel topic of toilets to the forefront.
The World Toilet Association is an international organization dedicated to protecting lives through the improvement of sanitation via toilets. The Inaugural General Assembly held in Seoul, Korea on Nov. 22, 2007, hosted participants from 66 countries, including government officials in the fields of sanitation and public health, representatives from NGOs and other international organizations, and industry experts. They gathered to affirm the importance of toilets on humanity and discuss future plans for improving sanitation conditions throughout the world.
''The absence of a toilet, is in many ways indicative of the inequalities in our world."
H.E. Mr. Burhan Gafoor, Permanent Representative of Singapore to the UN, Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen,
Thank you for the opportunity to be here, and to help mark World Toilet Day 2020.
My sincere appreciation to the Permanent Missions of Singapore, India, and Nigeria, as well as to UN agencies, for their organization of this event, and of course for their continued commitment, to push for access to improved sanitation and clean water.
While it may seem like such a simple thing, the absence of a toilet, is in many ways indicative of the inequalities in our world.
Consider a young child or teenage girl, whose access to education is hindered, because of a lack of sanitation facilities. Or the women, who fear sexual violence, as they trek out of their homes at night. Consider the untold numbers, who have suffered or perished from diseases, that are spread by poor sanitation – cholera, typhoid, dysentery, or polio.
And these are not a few people…
- 4.2 billion people live without safely managed sanitation;
- 2 billion people don't have a decent toilet of their own, of which 673 million still practice open defecation;
- and 3 billion lack basic handwashing facilities at home.
The fact that, nearly half the world's population, doesn't have basic handwashing facilities in the midst of a global pandemic, should alarm us all.
Unfortunately, progress towards universal sanitation, is off track and uneven in its coverage. At the current rate of progress, it will be well into the next century, before 'sanitation for all' is a reality.
Clearly we have to scale up our efforts, rapidly and exponentially.
We have to see the bigger picture, and the interconnected nature of sustainable development. Improved access to sanitation and clean water, can improve access to education; empower women and girls; boost jobs and livelihoods; and protect biodiversity, while fighting climate change.
On these latter, environmental points, it is worth noting that 80% of waste water, goes back into ecosystems untreated. And carbon emissions, from poor or absent sanitation facilities, contribute to climate change.
So how do we close this century long gap?
We do this, by scaling up our investments in water and sanitation, at home and abroad. We do this, by partnering with the private sector, both for financial investments, but also for innovation in new, more affordable and perhaps more efficient systems. And we do this, by raising awareness, and informing people about the impacts, direct and indirect, as we are doing here today.
Ladies and gentlemen,
I have long stated that, the UN and its Member States must own up to its resolutions and deliver upon them. These cannot be words on paper.
In this regard, I am pleased to note that, as President of the General Assembly, I am mandated to convene a High-Level meeting on the water-related goals and targets of the 2030 Agenda in 2021.
Through this high-level meeting, we will share lessons and experiences, mobilize actions and resources, provide the space for different sectors, to engage, generate high-level political support, raise global awareness of SDG6, and attract youth participation.
Excellencies, in closing, allow me to reiterate: this is not only a matter of convenience. Unfortunately billions are lacking access to these basic needs, which has also impacted, basic human rights and freedoms – such as health and education. And as COVID-19 has made sure to remind us, all problems are global problems.
So, let us work together, to support each other, to raise each other up, and to meet this most basic need.
Volkan Bozkir, President of the 75th session of the UNGA.
H.E. Mr. Burhan Gafoor, Permanent Representative of Singapore to the UN, Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, Thank you for the opportunity t
The humble toilet: Protecting public health and boosting business.
Since 2015, the Youth Leadership Programme (YLP) has engaged 90 young Yemenis from across the country through annual innovation camps, hacka
The construction of 14,500 toilets across Yemen will bring life-changing benefits to thousands. “We have contributed to creating a clean and healthy environment, and that is the bottom line of our work,” says Yasser Ahmed Al-Shaibani, the Assistant Director of the sub-district of PWP in Sana’a.
The International sanitation project typically focus on infectious diseases and drinking water, whereas excrement and sewage waste disposal hardly receive the same amount of attention. In order to focus attention on these problems, the WHO formally defined sanitation as "the means of collecting and disposing of excrete and community liquid wastes in a hygienic way so as not to endanger the health of individuals and the community as a whole" (WHO, 1987).
Although this declaration created awareness about the link between toilet and hygiene, people must realize just how crucial the sanitary disposal of waste water is for both the health of the community and its dignity as well.
