Where Would You Hide? 2.6 Billion Toiletless

2.6 billion people lack access to adequate sanitation; the devasting truth that lies behind the UN declaration 2008 International Year of Sanitation. The international campaign Sanitation-is-dignity will be presented in the centre of Stockholm 16-23 August, parallel to the 2008 World Water Week in Stockholm, where sanitation is in focus.

”The aim is to raise public awareness of sanitation as an important development issue,” says Cecilia Martinsen, Project Director at SIWI and initiator to bringing the campaign to Sweden.

Access to adequate sanitation is a precondition for human health with consequences for development in communities and nations. Adequate sanitation contributes to social and economic development and to the environment. Access to adequate sanitation is also a question of dignity – sanitation-is-dignity. Despite these facts, the proportion of people with access to improved sanitation is a Millennium Development Goal indicator which show slow progress.

Some Staggering Statistics:
• diarrhoeal diseases kill more than 5,000 children per day
• inadequate sanitation causes kids to miss 194,000,000 days from school each year
• over the past 10 years more people have died from the results of poor sanitation than from armed conflicts (Source: UNDP, Human Development Report 2006)

It is time to act!
The proportion of people of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation shall be halved according to the Millennium Development Goal. In order to reach this target, 95,000 families need to be served with sanitation every day to reach this goal.

Show your support by visiting us at Norrmalmstorg in Stockholm
The exhibition will be inaugurated on Saturday August 16, at 12:30 and will continue until August 23. The exhibition will be open every day 10:00-16:00 and include lunch-time activities such as interviews with experts on sanitation.

"Sanitation-is-dignity" in Stockholm is organised by Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI) in cooperation with AMREF, Karolinska Institutet, Sida, SEI/EcoSanRes, Swedish Water House, UNICEF Sverige and UNDP Water Governance Facility at SIWI. For more information about the Norrmalmstorg exhibition, please contact Anna Sjögren, anna.sjogren@siwi.org.

"Sanitation-is-dignity" is a global initiative of the German Toilet Organization (GTO), supported by UN-Water. It has already been organised in several cities including Berlin, Zürich, New York and Nairobi.

For more information the global exhibition, please visit www.sanitation-is-dignity.org.