Next year will be the International Year of Sanitation, according to the United Nations, which produced a shocking set of statistics on Wednesday — 2.6 billion people, or 41 percent of the world’s population, do not have access to latrines or any sort of basic sanitation facilities.

Every year inadequate water and poor sanitation and hygiene contribute to the deaths of 1.5 million children, it says. Better sanitation by 2015 was a key environmental indicator added to world goals at an Earth Summit in 2002.

So why don’t we hear more about sanitation? Don’t people like talking about it?

“Sanitation is not a dirty word; it is a crucial factor in human welfare and sustainable development,” says Sha Zukang, Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs. “We need to put the spotlight on this silent crisis.”

 

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