“Expressing our concern that it falls far short of what is needed.” These are the words of the Heads of State and Government in their outcome document of the UN Summit on September 20th-22nd in New York, where they discussed progress on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Departing from this assessment, you may wonder how much further a target referred to as the Orphan MDG must fall short of what is needed. The “orphan” in question is improved sanitation, embedded in MDG 7 dedicated to environmental sustainability. Unfortunately, even after the summit, many leaders continue to neglect its importance.

Adequate sanitation greatly improves health conditions and reduces child mortality. But it can also help make progress on other development goals, such as gender equality and universal education. For example, a recently published Amnesty study on sanitation in Kenyan slums revealed the significant adverse impact on gender of inadequate sanitation facilities.

At the summit, the President of Liberia, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, lamented that the sanitation target is “under-discussed, under-prioritized and, therefore, under-resourced.” She pointed out that 80 percent of the countries in sub-Saharan Africa are off track for the sanitation target. World leaders have shown little interest in making progress here because building toilets is less “fashionable” than constructing new wells or making other more visible advances. In a sense, U.S. President Obama got it right when he recognized the need to channel aid more effectively. Despite this statement, and reflecting the extent of the neglect of the topic, he focused on more popular topics – a move clearly owed to looming U.S. mid-term elections coupled with plummeting popularity rates.

Given the high payoffs of investments in development cooperation leaders as well as practitioners will have to ask themselves why they do not channel more resources toward improving sanitation. Pledges were made, as in the past – but world leaders will finally have to deliver. (Stephan Wolters)

The Outcome Document of the UN Summit is available at http://www.un.org/en/mdg/summit2010/pdf/mdg%20outcome%20document.pdf

The Amnesty International report “Insecurity and Indignity“ is available here.

Read the op-ed by Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf for the New York Times in the run-up to the summit here.

Published in: ECC-Newsletter, October 2010