tagged w/ Sanitation
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Unsurprisingly it's a Japanese site...aimed at helping you understand the etiquette and pitfalls of the world's toilets.
Sanitation navigation anyone?
dUnsurprisingly it's a Japanese site...aimed at helping you understand the... more
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If you look at the numbers, it is hard to see how many East African communities made it through the long drought of 2005 and 2006.
Among people who study human development, it is a widely-held view that each person needs about 20 litres of water each day for the basics - to drink, cook and wash sufficiently to avoid disease transmission.
Yet at the height of the East African drought, people were getting by on less than five litres a day - in some cases, less than one litre a day, enough for just three glasses of drinking water and nothing left over.
Some people, perhaps incredibly from a western vantage point, are hardy enough to survive in these conditions; but it is not a recipe for a society that is healthy and developing enough to break out of poverty.
"Obviously there are many drivers of human development," says the UN's Andrew Hudson.
"But water is the most important."
At the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), where Dr Hudson works as principal technical advisor to the water governance programme, he calculated the contribution that various factors make to the Human Development Index, a measure of how societies are doing socially and economically.
"It was striking. I looked at access to energy, spending on health, spending on education - and by far the strongest driver of the HDI on a global scale was access to water and sanitation."
Excerpt from article.
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Is it coincidental that we see conflict in every place on this map marked in red in the Middle East?If you look at the numbers, it is hard to see how many East African communities made... more
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Who knew...
Beneath the headline of something we both take for granted, and smirk at... lurks a much more important consideration of sanitation around the world.
dWho knew...
Beneath the headline of something we both take for granted, and smirk... more
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The number of people on the planet with no access to any sort of toilet is a whopping 2.6 billion - about four out of every ten people. The World Toilet Organization aims to bring about change, first by creating an open forum for issues of toilet-related sanitation. More toilets could save lots of money too: "Globally, if universal sanitation were achieved by 2015, it would cost $95 billion, but it would save $660 billion," writes Rose George in her newly released book "The Big Necessity." "When Peru had a cholera outbreak in 1991, it cost $1 billion to contain but could have been prevented with $100 million of better sanitation measures."
World Toilet Day is November 19.The number of people on the planet with no access to any sort of toilet is a whopping... more
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As if living in a country at war was not bad enough, the people of Afghanistan are battling a new outbreak of cholera.
At least 20 people have been killed so far - most of them women and children.
Health workers blame poor sanitation and a lack of clean water.
Dan Nolan reports from Afghanistan.As if living in a country at war was not bad enough, the people of Afghanistan are... more
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Simply installing toilets where needed throughout the world and ensuring safe water supplies would do more to end crippling poverty and improve world health than any other possible measure, according to an analysis released today by the United Nations University.
The analysis says better water and sanitation reduces poverty in three ways.
• New service business opportunities are created for local entrepreneurs;
• Significant savings are achieved in the public health sector; and
• Individual productivity is greater in contributing to local and national economies.
UNU also calls on the world's research community to help fill major knowledge gaps that impede progress in addressing the twin global scourges of unsafe water and poor sanitation.
Information gaps include such seemingly obvious measures as common definitions and worldwide maps to identify communities most vulnerable to health-related problems as a result of poor access to sanitation and safe water. UNU also calls for creation of a "tool-box" to help policy-makers choose between available options in local circumstances.
"Water problems, caused largely by an appalling absence of adequate toilets in many places, contribute tremendously to some of the world's most punishing problems, foremost among them the inter-related afflictions of poor health and chronic poverty," says Zafar Adeel, Director of the UN University's Canadian-based International Network on Water, Environment and Health.
"It is astonishing that, despite all the attention these issues have received over decades, the world has not even properly mapped water and sanitation problems nor agreed on such terms as 'safe,' or 'adequate,' or 'accessible' or 'affordable,' all of which are in daily use by officials and policy-makers."
In the analysis, prepared for global policy makers and released Oct. 20 at the start of a two-day UNU-hosted international workshop in Hamilton, Canada, experts offer a prescription for policy reform.
Based on input of experts from several countries convened in Canada late last year, the analysis urges governments to adopt a more coordinated, integrated and interlinked approach to dealing with water and sanitation problems. Such efforts must be included in national economic development plans.
The UNU analysis identifies population growth, poverty, climate change, globalization and inappropriate policies on investment, urbanization, and intensification of agriculture as the five global trends most likely to exacerbate water supply and sanitation problems in years to come.
"The UN's Millennium Development Goal, agreed in the year 2000, committed nations to halve by 2015 the number of people who lack safe water and adequate toilet facilities," says Dr. Adeel, who will chair the workshop.
"As the International Year of Sanitation winds down, UNU invites and welcomes the help of all scientists who agree we can and must do more," says Prof. Susan Elliott, a Senior Research Fellow at UNU-INWEH and a professor at McMaster University.
"Poor health, especially chronic illness, can force a household below the poverty threshold," the analysis says.
This becomes self-perpetuating as a poverty-stricken household is more prone to ill health. Low education levels and lack of knowledge further maintain this cycle, as understanding links between hygiene and waterborne diseases tend to come more easily to households with higher education levels.
The results are significant, especially for women and girls, improving household health, reducing the time spent to collect water and providing a safe and dignified environment for practising sanitation. This means that there is more time to tend to crops and livestock, more time and resources to spend on improved food preparation, more time to attend school and, an opportunity to participate in the local economy; all mechanisms which work towards breaking the cycle of poverty.
********CONTINUESSimply installing toilets where needed throughout the world and ensuring safe water... more
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- It pays to use a toilet in southern India, as residents are earning close to a dollar a month by using public urinals, a scheme launched by authorities to promote hygiene and research in rural areas.
Dozens of people are queuing up to use toilets in Musiri, a remote town in Tamil Nadu state, where authorities have succeeded in keeping street corners clean with the new scheme, The Times of India newspaper said on Sunday.
"In fact, many of us started using toilets for urination only after the ecosan (ecological sanitation) toilets were constructed in the area," said S. Rajasekaran, a truck cleaner.- It pays to use a toilet in southern India, as residents are earning close to a... more
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The fight between large-scale corporations including Monsanto and Smithfield, and the Polish family farmers continues. This is a very interesting an informative article. Well worth the 3 minutes it takes to read it.The fight between large-scale corporations including Monsanto and Smithfield, and the... more
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