Technical Guide to EcoSan Promotion

Of these, 470 million live in Africa which lags behind other continents in sanitation
coverage. In Kenya, 56% of those who live in urban areas and 43% of those in rural
areas have access to sanitation. Nearly 10% of all Kenyan households are connected
to a sewerage system while some 50% use pit latrines. At 10%, national sanitation
coverage is slightly less than half the population. This means that some 18 million
people (51.4%) do not have access to a toilet.
Sanitation has been a part of our lives for thousands of years. The world’s first
known urban sanitation systems were constructed in the cities of the ancient Indus
Valley civilization that flourished between 2600 and 1900 BCE in Pakistan’s Sindh
province. Homes had a room that appears to have been set aside for bathing. The
waste water was flushed into covered drains that lined the major streets.
The benefits of sanitation have been substantiated by research and are clear to
comprehend. Every year, hundreds of thousands of people still die needlessly
because of the unhealthy living conditions caused by a lack of sanitation. In fact,
so important is sanitation to our good health and longevity that British Medical
Journal readers voted it as having greater value as a health intervention than
penicillin or anaesthesia.
There are other advantages to sanitation. It significantly boosts school attendance
and grants dignity to those who use it, particularly women and girls. Every shilling
spent on sanitation saves seven shillings on curative health services and lost
productivity. Currently, 200 million tonnes of human waste goes uncollected and
untreated around the world. So where sanitation exists, it saves the environment
from being polluted with toxic waste.
Sanitation is also a secret weapon for preserving the planet. This falls under the
category of ecological sanitation. Sanitation is there to cope with the results of
bodily functions that every person on this planet experiences every single day of
his or her life.
Yet despite its longstanding existence and the critical part it plays in our wellbeing,
no one is willing to talk about it. In today’s global community of communication
and openness, sanitation is one of the last great cultural taboos for the great majority
of societies.This may be why the budget for sanitation trails far behind spending
on either health or water even though the benefits of improved sanitation are
tangible and proven. As long as sanitation is perceived to be an unspeakable topic,
the politicians, policymakers, bureaucrats, development partners, community
leaders, humanitarians and business executives who could make a difference to
the coverage and quality of sanitation services shy away from contributing to its
development
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