The United Nations Children’s Education Fund (UNICEF) has launched a document – Game Plan to Reach Safely Sanitation 2022-2030 – to accelerate the achievement of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 6 by 2030.
The Game Plan is a step-change in UNICEF’s approach, with a focus on achieving a high-level of sanitation for a billion people around the world, while SDG 6 target 2 is on ending open defecation and providing access to safe sanitation.
The document was launched at an event in New York to commemorate the 2022 World Toilet Day, globally observed on November 19.
The event was co-hosted by the Permanent Missions of Nigeria to the UN, India, the Netherlands, Singapore and Tajikistan.
Ms Ann Thomas, Senior Adviser, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) Programme Group, UNICEF, said the Game Plan presented a comprehensive partnership vision with governments in the lead.
Thomas said the plan presented a vision for the government to lead, working to orchestrate the joint actions of the private sector, development sector, NGOs, and the citizens of the world.
“This is to collaborate in achieving the shared goal of safely managed sanitation for all,” she said.
She said the game plan of the organisation, covering the year 2022 to 2030, put government firmly in the lead.
“It focuses on a systems-strengthening approach, supporting the development of policy, strategy, planning and regulation, as well as strategies for sustainable funding and financing for all sanitation.
“It also reflects UNICEF’s agency wide commitment to climate action and the adoption of climate resilient sanitation,” she explained.
She added that as a co-custodian of monitoring SDG 6 target 2, under the Game Plan, UNICEF would support robust monitoring, transparent reporting, and the use of data and evidence for decision-making, academia and the private sector.
SDG 6 target 2 is on ending open defecation and providing access to safe sanitation, and hygiene is the farthest off track of all SDG 6 targets.
“Nearly half of the global population – or 3.6 billion people -do not have access to safe sanitation. Of those, nearly half a billion still practice open defecation,” she said.
Thomas further said the global sanitation had a profound impact on public health, economic productivity, environmental integrity, and educational outcomes, especially for girls and women who were disproportionately affected by deplorable sanitation conditions.
“Without safe sanitation, children are exposed to diarrheal diseases like cholera, typhoid and dysentery. Every day, over 700 children die from diarrhoea caused by unsafe water, sanitation and hygiene.
“Poor sanitation contributes as well as to malnutrition and stunting, performance and attendance at school, all of which can have a permanent impact on children’s physical and cognitive development.
“The countries where the most unsafe sanitation practices are widespread have the highest number of under-5 child deaths, as well as the highest levels of malnutrition,” said Thomas.
In addition, she said climate change posed an additional risk, noting that extreme weather events could damage and destroy sanitation infrastructure, spreading human waste and contaminating food crops and water supplies with deadly pathogens.
“Although we have made progress,” Thomas said the world needed to move faster.
“We are not moving fast enough. Today, only 25 per cent of countries are on track to achieve their sanitation targets.
“In order to achieve SDG 6. 2 targets by 2030, we need to quadruple our efforts,” she said. (NAN)
