WaterAid supports UN’s call to end open defecation

WaterAid today welcomes a new UN campaign championed by UN Deputy Secretary General Jan Eliasson to end the practice of open defecation.

Over 1 billion people around the world relieve themselves in bushes, in fields or at the sides of roads or railway tracks for lack of even a basic, shared pit in the ground. This is 14% of the world’s population, or one person in seven.

Where there is open defecation, pathogens spread quickly, causing diarrhoea, cholera, bilharzia (a freshwater worm) and other diseases.

More than 1,400 children die each day of diarrhoeal diseases linked to a lack of safe water, basic sanitation and good hygiene. Some 165 million children under 5 have also had their growth and brain development irrevocably stunted by malnutrition, much of it due to diarrhoea.

WaterAid is campaigning for everyone, everywhere to have access to safe water and basic sanitation by 2030. Some 748 million people in the world are without safe water, while another 2.5 billion are without adequate sanitation.

Barbara Frost, Chief Executive of WaterAid, said: “It is time to break the silence on open defecation. It is incredible to think that in this day and age, people must still risk their health and dignity for the lack of a basic toilet. It’s even more difficult for girls and women who risk harassment or worse, every time they go in search of a private place to relieve themselves.

"Safe water and basic sanitation has to be a top priority in effectively tackling extreme poverty. We call upon world leaders to set aside their discomfort in talking about open defecation and to take action.”

Without basic toilets, girls are more likely to drop out of school, and adults are less able to care for their families or to work, exacting huge social and economic costs.

WaterAid programme officers see daily the impact of open defecation, including water pollution and ill health.

Genetu Addisu, 58, a father of eight living in Yigatsu, on the Zega peninsula in Ethiopia, knows it too well. “We are all sick. I once went to a clinic and was diagnosed with four types of parasites – hookworm, giardia, bilharzia and another amoeba. I remember asking the doctor if I would really survive all that dose of medicine,” he told WaterAid researchers. In an informal study, forty-six of the 48 children in the local school tested positive for at least one parasite; his neighbours are constantly ill and talk about how their clothes smell after being washed in the faeces-contaminated lake.

Some facts about open defecation:

· Nigeria has seen its rate of open defecation rise from 10.3% in 2000 to 14.6% in 2012.

· India has seen its rate of open defecation decrease from 21.6% in 2000 to 12.3% in 2012, but remains the country with the largest number still relieving themselves in the open, 48 million people.

· Ethiopia has made dramatic progress on ending open defecation, down from 76.3% in 2000 to 36.7% in 2012.

· Bangladesh has also made good progress after a name-and-shame programme where communities declare themselves open-defecation-free. The number of people defecating in the open dropped from 19.2% in 2000 to 2.5% in 2012.

· WaterAid calculations based on WHO-Unicef data suggest that at present rates of progress, Sub-Saharan Africa overall will not become open defecation free until 2063. In Southern Asia, it will take until 2044.

The new UN campaign to end open defecation, is expected to continue to the end of next year, as the UN develops a new set of development goals to replace the original Millennium Development Goals.

Among the goals were pledges to cut in half the proportions of people without safe water and sanitation, respectively. Though the target on water has been met, those still without safe water are the hardest to reach; the target on sanitation remains the most off-track.