Sanitation For All

For a clearer picture :

Poor sanitation which has always been associated with Africa, has significant negative effects on the national economy and that 49% of all reported sickness and injuries in Sierra Leone is related to poor sanitation. Lack of adequate sanitation is a major threat to the environment which includes the degradation of the urban environment by the indiscriminate disposal of solid and liquid waste and the pollution of fresh water and lakes by untreated human waste, the result being smaller, contaminated fish catches. The cost of environmental damage includes discouragement of the tourist trade, reduced overseas markets and revenue for fish products, reduced production from fisheries and increased purchase costs for chemical and mechanical clean-up operations. The cause of this are all sanitation-related, either from poor lake water quality or poor hygiene during the catching process. In the 90s down to 2000, there were more government aided primary schools for students; of these s...

The overall purposes of sanitation are to provide a healthy living environment for everyone, to protect the natural resources (such as  surface water ,  groundwater ,  soil ), and to provide safety, security and  dignity  for people when they  defecate  or  urinate . We also have a  human right to sanitation : In September, 2010, the UN Human Rights Council adopted a resolution recognizing that the human right to water and sanitation are a part of the  right  to an adequate standard of living. Effective sanitation systems provide barriers between excreta and humans in such a way as to break the  disease transmission cycle (for example in the case of fecal-borne diseases).This aspect is visualised with the F-diagram where all major routes of  fecal-oral disease transmission  begin with the letter F: feces, fingers, flies, fields, fluids, food. One of the main challenges is to provide  sustainable sanita...

Kofi Yeboah, communications officer, Clean Team Ghana , Kumasi, Ghana. @kofiemeritus Recognise sanitation as a basic necessity:   Progress is slow, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa because governments do not see sanitation as a basic necessity in the way they see water and electricity.  Sanitation   should be planned as a utility service that works for all. The NGO approach is no longer working:  If it were Ghana would have been better off in sanitation challenges. There is a need for the social enterprise model for sanitation which focuses on making social impact at an affordable cost as well as creating jobs for local people. Jesse Shapiro, Wash and sanitation advisor, USAid , Washington DC, USA. @USAID Beware of the complicated nature of the sector:  This has been one major reason for its poor performance as compared to other MDGs. Sanitation responsibilities span multiple stakeholders and cannot just be improved by the distribution of a product. S...

Sanitation  refers to  public health  conditions related to clean  drinking water  and adequate treatment and disposal of  human excreta  and  sewage . Sanitation system aim to protect human health by providing a clean environment that will stop the  transmission of disease , especially through the  fecal-oral route .  For example,  diarrhoea , a main cause of  malnutrition  and  stunted growth  in children, can be reduced through sanitation.  There are many other diseases which are easily transmitted in communities that have low levels of sanitation, such as  ascariasis ,  cholera ,  hepatitis ,  polio ,  schistosomiasis , and   trachoma .