Keep up to date on all of our up and coming events, campaigning activity and find out how you can really get involved with our work.

Home     Campaigns & Events     Campaigns     Sanitation For All

Sanitation For All

Since 1990, more than 1 billion people have been given access to basic sanitation. This has greatly improved their health and lives. Yet progress isn't happening fast enough, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa where rural communities are acutely affected. At the current rates of investment in development the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) will not be reached for water provision until 2035 and for sanitation not until 2108. That is 100 years too long to wait for a toilet.

Pump Aid believes in Sanitation for All, and are campaigning to break the taboo of the toilet, to get people really talking about the issue as it is not just health that is affected by sanitation; it has a huge impact on the environment, poverty reduction and economic and social development.

Working in conjunction with the End Water Poverty Coalition (EWP) in 2010, Pump Aid aims to ensure the MDG goals are met and pressure is put on government officials to ensure the amount of focus on this issue of sanitation is increased, to ensure a real change is made by all governments.

World Toilet Day

World Toilet Day, 19th November, as it was declared by the World Toilet Organisation, is a day used to highlight the 2.5 billion people who are living without a toilet. Pump Aid and campaigners across the globe have used this day to bring the issue of poor sanitation in developing counties onto peoples agenda’s, and to put this issue into the international development spotlight - which it sometimes fails to receive.

What’s the issue?

  • In Africa, 5% of the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is lost due to illnesses and deaths caused by dirty waste and the absence of sanitation.
  • This is not to mention the inexcusable indignity caused by not having hygienic, safe, private place to go to the toilet; a humiliation which is predictably shouldered by women more than men. Terrifyingly, the fact is that when finding a secluded place to relieve themselves; women are then left open to attack. Moreover, on reaching adolescence, girls abandon education due to inadequate sanitation facilities in schools.
  • There are currently 2.5 billion people around the world living without a toilet. We’re talking 40%, so almost half, of the world’s population! That’s nearly every other person walking, talking and existing on our planet without the basic requirement of a toilet.

Actions