World Toilet Day 2021: “Who cares about toilets? 3.6 billion people do. Because they don’t have one that works properly.“ That is the starting point of this 2021 Campaign for World Toilet Day.
The Observance celebrates toilets and raises awareness of the 3.6 billion people living without access to safely managed sanitation. When some people in a community do not have safe toilets, everyone’s health is threatened. Poor sanitation contaminates drinking-water sources, rivers, beaches and food crops, spreading deadly diseases among the wider population.
Theme for World Toilet Day 2021 is “Valuing Toilets”.
The campaign draws attention to the fact that toilets and the sanitation systems that support them are underfunded, poorly managed or neglected in many parts of the world, with devastating consequences for health, economics and the environment, particularly in the poorest and most marginalized communities.
On the other hand, the advantages of investing in an adequate sanitation system are immense. For instance, every $1 invested in basic sanitation returns up to $5 in saved medical costs and increased productivity, and jobs are created along the entire service chain. For women and girls, toilets at home, school and at work help them fulfil their potential and play their full role in society, especially during menstruation and pregnancy.
World Toilet Day 2021 History:
The World Toilet Organization was founded on 19 November 2001 and the inaugural World Toilet Summit was held on the same day, the first global summit of its kind. We recognised the need for an international day to draw global attention to the sanitation crisis and so we established World Toilet Day. NGOs, the private sector, civil society organisations and the international community joined in to mark the global day.
In 2013, a joint initiative between the Government of Singapore and World Toilet Organization led to Singapore’s first UN resolution, entitled “Sanitation for All”, calling for collective action to address the global sanitation crisis through the commemoration of World Toilet Day. The resolution was co-sponsored and adopted by 122 countries at the 67th session of the UN General Assembly in New York. On July 24, 2013, World Toilet Day on 19 November became an official UN day.
Each year UN World Toilet Day calls on the global community to do more to address the sanitation crisis.
How to cure the problem of sanitation:
The solution is about taking action to tackle the global sanitation crisis and achieve Sustainable Development Goal 6: water and sanitation for all by 2030.
Even though sanitation is a human right recognized by the United Nations, we urgently need massive investment and innovation to quadruple progress all along the ‘sanitation chain’, from toilets to the transport, collection and treatment of human waste.
As part of a human rights-based approach, governments must listen to the people who are being left behind without access to toilets and allocate specific funding to include them in planning and decision-making processes.
