Happy World Toilet Day! This business concerns us all
Today's headline on the website of the Dutch non-governmental organisation IRC Wash has a positive message: Happy World Toilet Day! This 'business' concerns us all.
On World Toilet Day, IRC calls on every local and national government to prioritize and invest in sanitation services.
Other Dutch organisations such as Simavi, Aqua for All and SNV share the same business wise vision as is expressed on their websites as well.
On 19 November every year the world celebrates World Toilet Day. This year the focus is: Better Sanitation for Better Nutrition.
Keep sanitation services going
According to IRC politicians must prioritize and invest in sanitation services. Behind every toilet there is a sanitation chain: from the construction of facilities to the safe disposal of human waste. IRC want local governments to facilitate these services and keep them going.
On its website IRC gives the example of Ghana that launched - on World Toilet Day - a sanitation challenge for big cities, municipalities and districts to tackle their dire sanitation problem.
In line with Modi's Clean India Campaign, this initiative will hopefully inspire a national effort to improve sanitation and eliminate open defecation, as is to read on the website.
Business wise approach
A similar message has been posted by Aqua for All. On its website it invites investors, entrepreneurs and waste water-industry to join forces.
Aqua for All advocates two innovation tracks for a 'new kind of sanitation’. The first track is a business wise approach concerning the creation of value in the sanitation service chain. This can be achieved by supporting small and medium enterprises in construction, operations, collection and cleaning. Aqua for All argues that this track creates opportunities for employability while services improve.
The second track focusses on creating value drivers from human waste (feces, urine, sludge) treatment, in digesting (biogas) and production of organic affordable qualified fertilizer.
Leticia Lazaro from Tanzania is very happy she received a new latrine that is safe for her children.
Concerns over poorly designed pits
Simavi calls for more, sustainable and better-managed toilets. On its website it expresses its concern about faecal sludge that is often allowed to accumulate in poorly designed pits, discharged into storm drains and open water, or dumped into waterways, wasteland and insanitary landfill sites.
According to Simavi this creates a bigger sanitation and environmental problem.
Simavi provides sanitation services in rural and urban communities and trained pit emptiers on how to empty pits and transport sludge safely and hygienically.
Reactions from around the world
SNV Netherlands Development Organisation runs WASH-projects in some 25 countries around the world. On the occasion of World Toilet Day it published reactions from its beneficiaries about what their toilet means to them.
One of the reactions is from Leticia Lazaro in Tanzania who received a Safi latrine. “Before, my kids could not use the latrine because it wasn’t that safe – the hole was too big and we were afraid of it collapsing. The SAFI is strong, we know how it was installed and that we can trust it."
This news item is based on publication on the websites of Aqua for All, IRC Wash, Simavi and SNV World.
See also: www.worldtoiletday.info.
More information
Aqua for All
The Hague, the Netherlands
+31 70 3519 725
www.aquafirall.org
IRC Wash
The Hague, the Netherlands
+31 70 304 4000
www.ircwash.org
Simavi
Haarlem, the Netherlands
+31 23 531 80 55
www.simavi.nl
SNV
The Hague, the Netherlands
+31 70 344 0244
www.snvworld.org