African Ministers unite in fight against backlogs

Abstract

Sanitation More than 30 of Africa’s sani­ tation ministers pledged their allegiance to the war against open defecation and poor toilet facilities when they signed the Ministerial Declaration at the Africa­ San 2008 conference, which took place in Durban in February. The event followed the first AfricaSan conference, held in Johannesburg in 2002, where a United Nations Millennium Development Goal (MDG) specifically for sanitation was created. This MDG aims to reduce, by half, the number of people with­ out access to basic sanitation and hygiene by 2015. The Durban conference focused the attention of Africa’s sanitation leaders and technical experts on exploring ways of accelerating achievement of national and MDG targets for sanitation. Sanitation, or the lack of it, remains one of the most pressing development issues around the world. About 2,6 billion people do not have safe toilet facilities – almost 980 mil­ lion are children under the age of 18. The result is not surprising: millions of people die each year from pre­ ventable diseases.

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