World Toilet Day

World Toilet Day
Logo of the World Toilet Day.
Date	19 November
Next time	19 November 2024 (2024-11-19)
Frequency	annual
First time	October 19, 2001
Related to	Menstrual hygiene day

Children in the Philippines doing a puppet theatre in the "My School Toilet" contest to raise awareness for the need for toilets (Cagayan de Oro in 2010)

World Toilet Day (WTD) is a campaign to motivate and mobilize millions around the world on issues of sanitation. Originally established by the World Toilet Organization in 2001, this day to draw attention to global sanitation issues is marked each year on November 19. Since 2001, WTD has grown in scope and recognition by global partners. In 2013, the United Nations (UN) passed a resolution recognizing WTD as an official UN international day (UN Resolution A/67/L.75).

Background

About 1 out of 3 people on earth lack access to basic sanitation and clean water. Access to toilets and clean water is an important issue since the world's population is growing. Where there is no access to toilets, individuals defecate outdoors and can cause health issues which are preventable. There are at least fifteen different diseases that can be prevented by good hygiene and sanitation, including anaemia, ascariasis, campylobacteriosis, cyanobacteria toxin, dengue, hepatitis, Japanese encephalitis, leptospirosis, malaria, schistosomiasis, trachoma and typhoid fever.

Providing access to basic toilets decreases disease twice as much as access to clean drinking water, however historically, toilet building receives a mere fraction as much funding. WTD is an effort to raise awareness of the importance of using toilets.

As part of the United Nations Resolution A/67/L.75, UN-Water and the Thematic Priority Area (TPA) on Drinking Water and Basic Sanitation, was tasked with facilitating the annual implementation of WTD in collaboration with Governments and relevant stakeholders.

Each year a theme for WTD is proposed by UN-Water. The UN-Water’s TPA on Drinking Water and Basic Sanitation facilitates the mobilization of civil society, think tanks, non-governmental organizations, academics, and corporates around the annual WTD theme to strengthen the global voice on sanitation. UN-Water encourages and supports WTD campaigner’s to take action on issues of sanitation, and uses the WTD website, social media, and other means of communication to consolidate global WTD messages, resources, and activities. Whether individuals, organizations, or governments adopt the annual theme or not, conveners of this official UN international day work to connect and share global WTD efforts.

Some other dangers can also be reduced by providing access to toilets: For example, in South Africa researchers found that by increasing access to public toilets by providing more of them, there would be fewer incidents of sexual assault or gender-based violence carried out on women walking to toilets.

Demonstration of how to use a urine diverting dry toilet at a seminar to raise awareness for World Toilet Day in 2009 at GIZ headquarters in Eschborn, Germany

Overview

Each year of the WTD has a different focus. Following examples give an overview of different themes and slogans of the past years.

2014

The theme for WTD 2014 was equality and dignity. The campaign strived to inspire action to end open defecation, and put spotlight on existing inequalities in access to sanitation and on risks of assault and violence on women and girls where sanitation access is poor.

2012

Its 2012 slogan was “I give a shit, do you?”.

Environmental aspects

Conventional sanitation systems with waterborne sewage used in industrialized countries require due to their large sizes enormous amounts of water and high investment and operating costs. Therefore those systems are not suitable for all over the world. Especially in developing countries with arid climate such systems do not seem appropriate. Conventional sanitation systems are being criticized for environmental reasons: Fertilization with sewage sludge (which not only contains plant nutrients but also heavy metals and chemicals from the environment) leads to increase pollution of cropland. Furthermore, wastewater treatment processes might not always sufficiently remove environmental chemicals and pathogens which can result in contaminated rivers with health issues and usage restrictions for people who live downstream. Therefore, the WTD also promotes alternative water and sanitation technologies.

History

In 2001, the World Toilet Organization declared its founding day, 19 November, as World Toilet Day. Since then, 19 November has been observed globally by its member organizations.

In Malaysia, a celebration of 2010 World Toilet Day ended with cash prizes being awarded for 7% of the 5,700 public toilets (schools, shopping malls, restaurants, etc.) which had been inspected by the Ministry of Housing and Local Government and earned the maximum 5-star rating. The official noted that more than 51% of the toilets inspected had received only one or two stars.

In 2012 the World Toilet Day slogan was “I give a shit, do you?”.

In 2013, a joint initiative between the Government of Singapore and the World Toilet Organization led to Singapore’s first UN resolution, named “Sanitation for All”. This resolution addresses the global sanitation crisis and calls for collective action through commemoration of the World Toilet Day. It was adopted by 122 countries at the 67th session of the UN General Assembly in New York. The WTD became an official UN day.

See also

• Global handwashing day
• Lists of special days: Awareness day, List of commemorative days, International observance
• Menstrual hygiene day
• Sustainable Sanitation Alliance
• WASH
• World Water Day

External links

• World Toilet Day Website
• UN Resolution A/67/L.75
• Thematic Priority Area (TPA) on Drinking Water and Basic Sanitation