KARACHI – South Asia is going through its worst sanitation crisis, which could only be resolved by fulfilling the promises made by the governments of South Asian countries at various forums, especially at the South Asian Conference on Sanitation (SACOSAN), WaterAid Policy and Campaigns Director Margaret Batty told Pakistan Today in an exclusive interview. “Everyone talks about water scarcity and contamination, but no one discusses the poor sanitation and the lack of toilets around the world, especially in South Asia,” she added.
She was attending the fourth SACOSAN held in former Sri Lankan capital Colombo. During the conference, government representatives of eight South Asian countries agreed to adopt the United Nations declaration ‘sanitation is a basic human right’ in their national constitutions, and to allocate more funds in the budget for better sanitation.
“Poor sanitation is a major cause of diarrhoea that, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO), kills more children around the world than AIDS, malaria and measles, combined,” said Batty. Quoting the official data of WaterAid and WHO, she said that 1.4 million children around the world die every year of diarrhoea caused by impure water and poor sanitation – that is 4,000 deaths a day or one every 20 seconds. “This is the same as losing 160 classrooms of infants every single day to an entirely preventable health crisis,” she added.
Talking on the role of the media to get better sanitation in the South Asia, she says that media must plays its role in achieving the sanitation related targets in the region. “Media can play a vital role in highlighting sanitation issues and also in changing the people’s opinion. I am very happy that in some South Asian countries, the media is doing great work in this regard,” she said. The commitment made by the governments of South Asian countries at the SACOSAN is enough to alleviate the sanitation crisis in South Asia, she added. Her organisation is working on journalists’ capacity-building on water and sanitation issues and has also started WaterAid Young Media Fellowship Programme in Pakistan in 2009. The programme has also been extended to other South Asian countries including Bangladesh. As a result of the fellowship, journalists of South Asian countries formed WashMedia-South Asia-an independent regional forum of media persons working on water, sanitation and hygiene issues.
Batty further said that WaterAid works in 30 countries across Africa, Asia and the Pacific to improve quality of life through lasting improvements to water, sanitation and hygiene education, having a staff of 800, including 200 in the United Kingdom. She said that WaterAid recently started working on ecological sanitation (ecosan) in various countries to dispose of human waste in a proper manner and to use it as fertiliser.
“We are also thinking of initiating ecosan in South Asia, but in some countries, growing vegetables, fruits and other agricultural products using human-waste fertiliser is socially unacceptable. Therefore, it is very important to highlight this by spreading awareness among the masses,” she added.
