World Toilet Day
Posted by jonathanfryer on Monday, 19th November, 2007
No snickering at the back… this is serious. Today is World Toilet Day, and on Wednesday, the UN’s International Year of Sanitation will begin. As Peter Newborne of the Overseas Development Institute comments, ‘in Europe, we take for granted a toilet on the premises, at home and work. In the developing world, however, almost one in two people doesn’t have one. Imagine having to go to your local park, or to the nearest unoccupied land, to defecate?’
Many of us like to shut our eyes to such matters, or drive them from our mind. But providing proper sanitation for all the people of the world is one of the most pressing needs of the current age. It is recognised by the UN as a Millennium goal, not least because good sanitation and hygiene have huge health benefits (as the Victorians in Britain realised), as well as adding to human dignity. So when you pull the flush today, think for once of those who can’t — people whose very survival is threatened by the insanitary conditions in which they live, in both urben and rural areas.
Link: www.odi.org.uk
