Safe water, effective sanitation and hygiene are critical to the health of every child

INVC NEWS
New Delhi ,

The Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation, Government of India and UNICEF organized a briefing session on the upcoming Mahatma Gandhi International Sanitation Convention (MGISC) in New Delhi.  The convention will bring together ministers and other leaders from over 50 countries around the world in order to both showcase India’s progress and learn about the best Water Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) practices across the globe.

The Mahatma Gandhi International Sanitation Convention (MGISC) is a  four-day international conference scheduled to be held from 29 September-02 October 2018 in New Delhi and is being organized by the Government of India’s Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM), or Clean India Mission, the world’s largest sanitation programme.

Addressing the briefing, Shri. Parameswaran Iyer (IAS), Secretary, Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation, Government of India said “India has taken massive strides towards achieving universal safe sanitation. The Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) was launched on 2 October 2014, with an aim to build a Clean and Open Defecation Free (ODF) India by 2 October 2019, as a befitting tribute to the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi.”

Speaking with media, Dr. Yasmin Ali Haque, UNICEF India Representative said “Safe water, effective sanitation and hygiene are critical to the health of every child and every community – and thus are essential to building stronger, healthier, and more equitable societies. SBM is a unique programme, it is the largest such programme in the world and represents a mass movement. Swachh Bharat has captured attention across the globe. The convention will be a platform to exchange ideas and foster collective effort to ensure that every girl and boy has access to safe drinking water and sanitation.

Since the inception of the SBM program, the rural sanitation coverage of India has increased significantly, from 39 per cent in October 2014 to over 92 per cent as of end of August 2018. The number of people practicing open defecation in rural India has gone down from 550 million in 2014, to less than 150 million today.  Over 83.9 million household toilets have been constructed under the Swachh Bharat Mission. As a result, 19 States/Union Territories, 447 districts, and approximately 440,000 villages have declared themselves as free from open defecation.

India is on track to achieve open defecation free status by 2019, significantly contributing to the global achievement of SDG 6.

Open defecation can have debilitating impact on the economy. A UNICEF survey in 2017 highlights that if a family invests in a toilet will save Rs. 50,000 a year in India. The study conducted across 10000 households in 12 states to measure the economic impact of sanitation at a household level discovered that a single rupee invested in sanitation, allows a family to save Rs. 4.30 by averting medical costs.

Sanitation is not just about building toilets but about changing behaviour. Open defecation means that diseases such as cholera, polio, and hepatitis are spread more easily. It means that children are at a higher risk of diarrhoea, which in turn leads to malnutrition. Women are the worst affected due to lack of sanitation facilities. A huge number of pregnant women or new mothers die annually in India from preventable causes. This includes haemorrhage, eclampsia, sepsis and anaemia. Many deaths occur due to poor nutrition and improper sanitation.

The success of the Clean India Mission will undoubtedly have a significant impact on the global achievement of SDG 6.2. India is the only country which received special recognition in the Joint Monitoring Programme 2017 update by the WHO and UNICF. The MGISC aims to share sanitation success stories and lessons from the participating countries and culminates with the launch of the Mahatma’s150th birth year celebrations in India, as SBM enters its final year of implementation.