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National High School Model United Nations 2015 HLPF countries to communicate, raise awareness on the topic, and encourage political action on existing and new strategies. 102 SWA holds a high-level meeting every two years and gathers over 120 partners in a special annual partnership meeting. The 2013 partnership meeting, which took place in November, resulted in 379 agreements made by the partners to tackle the barriers hindering access to water and sanitation for all. 103 The 2013 Annual report cites a number of these commitments including the African Regional Workshop on the Implementation of the 2014 GLAAS (the UN-Water Global Analysis and Assessment of Sanitation and Drinking-Water). Held in Burkina Faso, this workshop enabled the robust data collection among the African region regarding sanitation and water access. This data will then be used to craft the goals and commitments of these states for the next SWA meeting. 104 Another notable national accomplishment was the 2014 World Water Week in Stockholm that focused this year’s event on providing information to the community on the goals and commitments for the SWA initiative in Sweden as well as showcasing various innovations in meeting this with an “SWA Market-place.” 105 These initiatives and the overall movement shows the political momentum the topic is gaining and the international community’s response. It evidences what the world needs to do in order to effectively address the topic: enhance political commitment and guidance. It is thus an example of the ever-growing need to face water and sanitation issues. These initiatives are heightened with additional research from programs such as the Joint Monitoring Programme (JNP), developed by WHO and UNICEF, is a joint effort “to address the monitoring challenges in the run up to the MDG’s 2015 deadline and beyond that.” 106 Through its comprehensive annual reports, JMP aims to accelerate the progress to achieve universal access to water and sanitation by 2025. Moreover, it intends to become the reliable and trusted source of global, national, and local data on the matter, which is a vital aspect of the topic. 107 Access to updated data on the topic is key to having a realistic grasp of the current situation and needs regarding water and sanitation. Sanitation Improvement: The Struggle to End Open Defecation “End Open Defecation” is a sanitation campaign that was launched on 28 May 2014 by Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson as part of his call to action on the current sanitation crisis. 108 According to Eliasson, sanitation-related diseases cause more deaths than AIDS, meningitis, and tuberculosis “combined in any given year.” 109 The campaign tries to raise awareness on the exorbitant rates of open defecation even today in the 21st century. It also seeks to expose how the sanitation crisis works, since it remains barely understood and thus generally neglected. This recent strategy is an example of how to take advantage of the current political momentum on the topic. It tries to spread the word of the alarming situation of global sanitation, generate more political commitment, and thus, hopefully, actual results. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 102 Ibid. 103 Ibid. 104 “Annual Report 2013,” Sanitation and Water for All, 2013, Accessed 8 Oct 2014. 105 Ibid. 106 “About the JMP,” Wssinfo, accessed 21 July 2014, http://www.wssinfo.org/about-the-jmp/mission-objectives/. 107 Ibid. 108 “United Nations Millennium Development Goals,” UN. 109 Ibid. - 21 -
National High School Model United Nations 2015 HLPF The reason why open defecation has been a relevant topic recently is the severe conditions that some countries now face because of the lack of basic sanitation. India is one of those states. Although India is not a SSA country, its situation with regards to sanitation can be very useful as a parallel to give a glimpse of what the topic demands in any country. India is a developing nation, with a huge population and a severe sanitation problem. 110 As many other countries have, India recognized that greater political drive is needed to tackle the issue and promote development. In fact, Narendra Modi, India’s Prime Minister, says that building toilets is a top priority now. 111 This is a logical move since more than 73% of rural India practices open defecation. 112 Moreover, from the one billion people in the world who lack sanitation, India holds 600 million within its borders. 113 This concerning figure is worsened by the rapidly growing Indian population. It causes water and sanitation diseases to spread faster, and causes mother-child health deficiencies as well as malnutrition and mortality rates to increase. Moreover, the economic cost that the lack of sanitation generates is estimated to be greater than the price of its solution. 114 The renewed political commitment to the matter is obvious. The Indian government announced that 5.2 million toilets will be built by September and allocated this month’s budget to set a goal to end open defecation by 2019. 115 However, building toilets with sewage access will not be enough to end the sanitation crisis that India faces; in many cultures, open defecation is often encouraged over using toilets or latrines. 116 Thus, providing toilets will only be effective if people actually use them. Therefore, governments need to build a better education program of water and sanitation usage through campaigns and public policies. 117 It requires a greater political drive to promote the effective use of sanitation facilities and to start implementing a hygienic culture. For instance, some media campaigns that aim to create a culture of hygiene and sanitation have begun to be implemented. In May 2014, the UN introduced a new Sesame Street Muppet called Raya whose role is ‘to engage children with important messages about proper latrine use and sanitation throughout Bangladesh, India and Nigeria.’ 118 Through this educational campaign, the UN and its partners aim to address these communities’ habits and start promoting safer water and sanitation usage. The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) is headed in a similar direction and launched Mr. Poo, as part of the Poo2Loo initiative, to encourage Indians to actually use installed latrines. 119 This approach is necessitated by the widespread phenomenon in many developing countries, like India, where latrines are abandoned or used as storage because “people are not convinced that it is a good idea to use a !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 110 “The Final Frontier,” The Economist, July 2014, http://www.economist.com/news/asia/21607837-fixing-dreadfulsanitation-india-requires-not-just-building-lavatories-also-changing. 111 Ibid. 112 Ibid. 113 Ibid. 114 Ibid. 115 Ibid. 116 Ibid. 117 Ibid. 118 “UN / OPEN DEFECATION,” UNifeed, last modified 28 May 2014, http://www.unmultimedia.org/tv/unifeed/2014/05/un-open-defecation/. 119 Olivia Yallop, “Meet Mr. Poo, the Star of India’s Public Sanitation Campaign,” 23 April 2014, accessed 23 July 2014, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/india/10780448/Meet-Mr-Poo-the-star-of-Indias-public-sanitationcampaign.html. - 22 -
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