Celebration of World toilet day at Gbewaa palace Yendi.

Today is WORLD TOILET DAY 2022

Theme: “Sanitation And Groundwater“

World Toilet Day (WTD) is an official United Nations international observance day declared by the UN General Assembly on 24 July 2013 by resolution A/RES/67/291 adopted by 122 countries at the 67th session of the UN General Assembly in New York. The declaration was made when Singapore tabled the 2012 resolution of UN’s General Assembly of 193 member states where a joint effort between the Government of and the World Toilet Organization had led to Singapore’s first UN resolution called “Sanitation for All.”

Prior to that time, World Toilet Day had been established by a Singapore-based philanthropist, Jack Sim who founded the World Toilet Organization (WTO) on 19th November, 2001 and held the inaugural World Toilet Summit on the same day, the first global summit of its kind, as against “World Sanitation Day,” for ease of public messaging, being the the first stage of sanitation apparatus, though unofficial. Their efforts to call attention to the sanitation crises were strengthened in 2010 when the right to water and sanitation was officially declared as human right by the UN, calling for collective action to end the world sanitation crises.

World Toilet Day is officially convened by the UN-Water that maintains the official website and responsible for choosing a special theme for each year. It is observed annually on 19th November to help break taboos around toilets and make sanitation for all a global development priority by informing, engaging and inspiring people to take action toward tackling the global sanitation crisis. The day is marked by communications campaigns and other activities planned by UN entities, international organizations, local civil society organizations and volunteers to raise awareness and inspire action on access to safe functioning toilet for positive impact on public health, human dignity, and personal safety, especially for females.

Toilets promote health because they allow people to dispose of their waste appropriately, preventing contamination of their environment and reducing risk to themselves and their neighbours. United Nations coordinates World Toilet Day to celebrate toilets and raise awareness of the 3.6 billion people, nearly half the world’s population living without access to safely managed sanitation at home. Of those, 1.9 billion people live with basic sanitation services while 494 million people practice open defecation, making it 1 in every 3 persons is without a toilet.

The World Toilet Day 2022 campaign, named ‘Making the invisible visible’ calls to mind the number of people in the world still lacking basic sanitary facilities and draws attention to the fact that toilets and the sanitation systems that support them are underfunded, poorly managed or neglected in many parts of the world, with devastating consequences for health, economics and the environment, particularly in the poorest and most marginalized communities, .

Sanitation systems that do not safely manage faecel waste will allow for soil contamination and the spread of diseases, especially waterborne diseases such as cholera, diarrhea, typhoid, dysentery and schistosomiasis among others, and also have a significant impact on childhood stunting. Each day, nearly 1,000 children die from diarrhea related to poor sanitation and contaminated water sources. The practice of good hygiene, and a safe water supply could save the lives of more than 350,000 children a year

The world is racing against time to meet the Sustainable Development Goal 6, target 2: water and sanitation for all by 2030, which aims at ending open defecation and ensuring the availability, accessibility and management sustainability of water and sanitation to ensure health for all. It is meant to spread and broaden public awareness of sanitations systems such as wastewater treatment, stormwater management, and hand washing.

The theme of this year, 2022 World Toilet Day is “Sanitation And Groundwater,” focusing on Economy and Sanitation, knowing full well that a robust economy cannot be talked about without proper sanitation, water and hygiene. It highlights the impact of the sanitation crisis on groundwater, as well exploring how inadequate sanitation systems spread human waste into rivers, lakes and soil, polluting underground water, which is the world’s most abundant source of freshwater that supplies drinking water and supports sanitation systems, farming, industry and ecosystems. The campaign urges governments to work on average four times faster to ensure SDG 6.2 is achieved in record time.

Poor sanitation contaminates drinking-water sources, rivers, beaches and food crops, spreading deadly diseases among the wider population. When some people in a community do not have safe toilets, everyone’s health is threatened. In all honesty, if we can reduce human waste by giving everyone access to clean toilets, we are then making the world a better place. WaterAid which is an international non-governmental organization established in 1981 and UnWater are trying their very best to change this situation and aim to have a clean, safe and private toilet to everyone, everywhere by 2030.

As climate change worsens and populations grow, groundwater remains vital for human survival and therefore should be well protected. Renewed efforts to provide access to satisfactory sanitation for all is highly advocated, reminding everyone of the “Call to Action on Sanitation” which was launched in 2013 and aimed to end open defecation by 2025, insomuch as 46% of the world still lack access to safely managed sanitation and 6% practicing open defecation.

Currently, 2.2 billion people have limited access to safe drinking water, and by 2025, half of the world’s population will be living in water-stressed areas. This year’s World Toilet Summit slated for 18 and 19 November, 2022 will be hosted by Nigeria which has been chosen for the first time because of her strong political will, indicating no better country for now than Nigeria after due monitoring. It is however the second time Africa is hosting, with the first one being South Africa in 2013.

Sanitation is a key component of development and has the capacity to transform a developing nation to a first world country when the issue of water is handled rightly in all ramifications, as did Singapore’s transformation from a third world country to a first world country because of her right attitude towards water sanitation and hygiene.