Ny strategi skal skaffe sikre og billige sanitære forhold i Den 3. Verden
KIGALI, Rwanda, July 2011: The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has launched a strategy to help bring safe, clean sanitation services to millions of poor people in the developing world.
In a keynote address at the 2011 Africa San(itation) Conference in Kigali, Sylvia Mathews Burwell, president of the foundation’s Global Development Program, called on donors, governments, the private sector, and NGOs to address the urgent challenge, which affects nearly 40 percent of the world’s population.
Flush toilets are unavailable to the vast majority in the developing world, and billions of people lack a safe, reliable toilet or latrine. More than a billion people defecate in the open.
– No innovation in the past 200 years has done more to save lives and improve health than the sanitation revolution triggered by invention of the toilet, Burwell said in her speech at AfricaSan, the third African Conference on Sanitation and Hygiene, organized by the African Ministers’ Council on Water (AMCOW).
– But it did not go far enough. It only reached one-third of the world. What we need are new approaches. New ideas. In short, we need to reinvent the toilet, noted she.
The foundation announced 42 million US dollar in new sanitation grants that aim to spur innovations in the capture and storage of waste, as well as its processing into reusable energy, fertilizer, and fresh water.
In addition, the foundation will support work with local communities to end open defecation and increase access to affordable, long-term sanitation solutions that people will want to use.
Improved sanitation can have a significant impact on the lives of millions of people worldwide.
Reducing by half the number of people who do not have access to basic sanitation is a key target of the United Nations’ 2015 Millennium Development Goals (2015 Målene). Access to safe sanitation reduces child diarrhea by 30 percent and significantly increases school attendance.
Unsafe methods to capture and store waste lead to serious health problems and death. About 1,5 million children die each year from diarrheal disease, and most of these deaths could be prevented with the introduction of proper sanitation, along with safe drinking water and improved hygiene.
But Burwell emphasized that there are no silver bullets (patentløsninger) in reinventing the toilet.
Addressing the needs of the 2,6 billion people who do not have access to safe sanitation requires hygienic, affordable, and sustainable ways to capture, treat, and recycle human waste. Most importantly, it requires close collaboration with local communities to develop lasting sanitation solutions that meet their needs.
The foundation and its partners are working to develop new tools and technologies that address every aspect of sanitation—from the development of waterless, hygienic toilets that do not rely on sewer (kloak) connections to pit emptying to waste processing and recycling (genbrug).
Many of the solutions being developed involve cutting-edge technology that could turn human waste into fuel to power local communities, fertilizer to improve crops, or even safe drinking water.
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