Last month the Bill and Melissa Gates Foundation asked researchers to reinvent the toilets “such that sewers are not required” (FSM, 2011).
This is a challenging goal, indeed a necessary one as in the past sanitation efforts have been very often unsustainable and unpleasant. However great can be the benefits from a toilet revolution, systemic problems which characterized the past decades of sanitation development failures must not be forgiven.
The need is urgent, half of total illnesses in the developing countries are caused by a lack of sanitation services and 1.5 million children die each year of related sanitation diseases (Dean, 2011). Diarreaha and cholera are just two of the most common diseases in the developing countries that kill many people because people drink contaminated water. The collection of water, primarily the responsibility of women and children, represents an additional burden. Up to 6 hours each day may be spent in search of water to meet household needs which then stops women and children to do other activities such as going to school or engage in small business (Montgomery and Elimech, 2007). As bad water kills more people than wars or earthquakes as stated by Anders Berntell the executive director of the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI) (Dean,2010) progress towards better water and sanitation is welcomed.
Although it is important to bring new solutions and invest in research to expand access to sanitation it is of outmost importance also to understand why past solutions have failed in order to not repeat the same old mistakes and bring sustainable solutions.
In October 2010, the 47-member Human Rights Council (HRC) affirmed that the right to water and sanitation was a basic human right, a consensus resolution described as a "historic first" for the U.N.'s premier human rights body based in Geneva. However for Anders Berntell, water and sanitation have remained two of the most neglected sub-texts of the eight MDGs (Dean, 2010).
Many solutions have been developed through out the years such as technology transfer, sanimarts, PHAST (Participatory Hygiene and Sanitation Transformation), eco-san, sanitation marketing and CLTS (Community Led Total Sanitation) which are just some of the latest trends. However none of these solutions seemed to have brought tangible changes. This is not because they were bad but mainly because water and sanitation failures have been linked to a general lack of political will from governments and international institutions to monitor, coordinate and drive effective progress where low levels of finance granted for the sector development showed the weak government and international institutions’ priorities (EndWaterPoverty, 2010, Montgomery and Elimech, 2007 ).
Lack of coordination between different water related sectors is also a burden that affected negatively sanitation development. Sanitation progress, water provision and health have long been 'joined' together in theory. The Developments in on-site Faecal Sludge Management (FSM) seminar held in South Africa in March 2011, questions the “holy trinity” sanitation, water provision and hygiene promotion. In fact, Yael Vellemann, senior health policy analyst at WaterAid, told IPS (2011) that "In most developing countries, the water and health sectors don’t work together.” She partly explains the phenomena by saying that “if you are a minister of health, you may get more votes by building a new hospital rather than going around talking about toilets." (Agazzi,2011). This is concerning when according to the World Bank and Vellemann, basically safe drinking water, separation of human beings from faeces and hand washing with soap - is the most cost-effective public health intervention.
A toilet revolution that could give (and only time will tell us if it will) a sustainable cost effective solution that people could easily buy and manage over time would be certainly useful, however in order to avoid to be another temporary, unsustainable or useless solution as many of the past happened to be, the systemic problems of the sanitation sector must be first faced nationally and globally.
Sources:
Agazzi I ,2011, Water, Sanitation Could Erase Cholera and Guinea Worm , Available at: http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=55708
Deen T., 2010, Bad Water More Deadly Than War. Available at: http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=50710
EndWaterPoverty, 2010, A Global Framework for Action on Water and Sanitation. Available at: http://www.endwaterpoverty.org/documents/global_framework_for_action_briefing__final_1.pdf
FSN Seminar, 2011, What happens when the pit is full? Development in on-site Faecal Sludge Management. Available at: http://www.ecosanres.org/pdf_files/WhatHappensWhenThePitIsFullFSMSeminarReportSouthAfricaNodeMarch2011.pdf
Montgomery and Elimech, 2007, Water and Sanitation in Developping countries: Including Health in the Equation. Available at: http://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1021/es072435t
Karimjee M., 2011, Toilet Revolution. Available at: http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2011/08/05/toilet-revolution/#comments
Interesting related information: Current documentary “the world toilet crisis”. Available at: http://current.com/shows/vanguard/92471289_the-worlds-toilet-crisis-vanguard-trailer.htm