The UN General Assembly has declared 2008 as 'The International Year of Sanitation (IYS)'to raise awareness about the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) issued to reduce by half the population without access to basic sanitation by 2015.
According to UN report, the world is falling behind on meeting the millennium development goal (MDG) sanitation target, and thus the central objective of the International Year of Sanitation (IYS) is to put the global community on track to achieve the MDG pertaining to sanitation. Improving access to sanitation is a good investment because it helps in economic growth and poverty reduction. Sanitation is the foundation of human health, dignity, and development. Increased access to sanitation is fundamental for meeting all the MDGs.
The IYS is a critically timed and unique opportunity to remove the "sanitation stigma" and advocate for the multiple benefits that flow from better hygiene, household sanitation, and waste water treatment.
The International Year launched at UN Headquarters in New York on November 21, 2007. Participants included Secretary-General Ban ki-moon; His Royal Highness Prince Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands, Chairman of the UNSGAB; Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs Sha Zukang; Unicef Executive Director Ann Veneman; Unicef Goodwill Ambassador singer Angelique Kidjo, and others. Unicef has been actively involved in the launch event.
The Year is being co-ordinated by the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA), working closely with a number of UN agencies and partners, including the Secretary-General's Advisory Board on Water and Sanitation (UNSGAB) and the UN-Water Task Force on Sanitation.
According to UN report at least 2.6 billion people, some 41 percent of the global population, do not have access to latrines or any sort of basic sanitation facilities. As a result millions suffer from a wide range of preventable illnesses, such as diarrhea, which claim thousands of lives each day.
Every year unsafe water, coupled with lack of basic sanitation kills at least 1.6 million children under the age of five. About 1.8 million people die every year from diarrhoeal diseases out of which 90 percent are children in developing countries.
About 88 percent people become victim to diarrhoeal disease, 500 million people are at risk from trachoma, and 133 million people suffer from high intensity intestinal infections due to unsafe water supply and inadequate sanitation.
About 84 percent of the population in rural areas is without any access to clean drinking water. If the current trends persist, nearly 1.7 billion rural dwellers will not have sanitation by 2015.
According to a recent WHO study, every dollar spent on improving sanitation generates an average economic benefit of $7. The economic cost of inaction is astronomical. Without improving sanitation, none of the other MDGs, to which the world has committed itself, will be achieved.
The progress towards drinking water and sanitation solutions needs to be accelerated and sustained to contribute to breaking the cycle of poverty, lack of education, poor housing and ill-health. The world urgently needs to set up activities, increase effectiveness and accelerate investments if the target is to be achieved. Yet in 2015 about 700 million people will still remain unserved.
In Pakistan, Water and Sanitation (Watsan) is the neglected sector. It has been estimated that about 38.5 million people lacked access to safe drinking water and almost 50.7 million lacked access to improved sanitation. If this will continue then 52.8 million people will be deprived of safe drinking water and 43.2 million will have no access to adequate sanitation facilities.
In Punjab, 1.17 million households have no access to hygiene sanitation, followed by 2.65 million in Sindh, 1.90 million in NWFP, 0.63 in Balochistan.
According to the repots of the WHO and the Pakistan Council of Research in Water Resources (PCRWR), water supplied to the citizens of many parts of the country is contaminated and harmful for human health. This situation could lead to pressure on government's health budget.