International Year of Sanitation - Quotes

Quotes

• “Our work has shown that sanitation does improve health - simple achievable interventions reduce for example diarrhoeal disease by 391 million cases per year.” WHO. 2007

• “Basic knowledge and understanding about the connection between hygiene and disease can save lives. The simple act of washing hands with soap (or ash, or earth) and water after going to the toilet is estimated to reduce diarrhoeal disease by a third.” - WHO/UNICEF 2000 Human Waste Report. 2002

• “To reach the sanitation target means providing services to an additional 450,000 people a day until 2015. This calls for almost a doubling of the current efforts. On current trends, the world will miss the sanitation target by more than half a billion people.” WaterAid

• “Poor sanitation and water supplies are the engines that drive cycles of disease, poverty and powerlessness in developing nations. Action to improve sanitation is an important step to enable the poorest people to escape poverty.” - WaterAid and Tearfund. Human Waste Report 2002

• "It is clear that investing in sanitation generates massive returns on health, the environment and the economy. In fact, the overwhelming evidence is that there is no single development policy intervention that brings greater public health returns than investment in basic sanitation and hygiene practices. The UN estimates that for every $1 spent on sanitation, the return on investment is around $9." -WaterAid. End Water Poverty event welcomes the UN International Year of Sanitation. 2008