Press Conference by World health organization

Among all Millennium Development Goals, the one on sanitation seemed the most elusive, but investments in sanitation provided a real “bang for the buck”, Kerstin Leitner and Jamie Bartram, both experts from the World Health Organization (WHO), told correspondents this morning during a press conference at Headquarters.

Introducing two reports -- “The Sanitation Challenge:  Turning Commitment into Reality” and “Evaluation of the costs and Benefits of Water and Sanitation Improvements at the Global Level” -- Ms. Leitner, Assistant Director-General for Sustainable Development and Healthy Environments, said experience on sanitation over the last 20 years had shown very positive results.  The real challenge in achieving the Millennium Development Goals, therefore, seemed to scale up those experiences so that more people could benefit.  Very often, investments in water, sanitation and hygiene were not considered to be economically feasible.

Mr. Bartram, Coordinator for Water, Sanitation and Health, said water and sanitation mattered for health.  In 2003, there had been an estimated 6 million deaths due to unsafe water and lack of sanitation and hygiene, 90 per cent of those of children in developing countries.  However, outbreaks of diseases related to the problems broke out in countries at all levels of development.  Experience had shown that improving water and sanitation pulled down disease rates.  Hitting the Millennium Development Goal target to halving the population without access to basic sanitation by 2015 meant getting sanitation to 2 billion people, divided equally over urban and rural areas.  That goal was not attainable with business as usual.

Experience had also shown, he said, that investments in water and sanitation really worked.  When looking at investment costs and benefits in preventing health costs, and time saved for not having to walk to collect water, it turned out that investing towards achieving the Millennium Goals would raise benefits of between $3 and $34 dollars for every dollar invested.  The necessary investment for achieving the Millennium Development Goal target was $11.3 million a year, but benefits would be valued at $84 billion, at the same time reducing diarrhoeal diseases by about 10 per cent.  Simple intervention on water treatment at home would render benefits of $5 to $60 for every dollar invested.

He added that there were many examples on how to do things better in reaching the Millennium Development Goals, including through capacity-building coupled with social mobilization; using non-traditional technologies; and innovation in service delivery, emphasizing small-scale entrepreneurs. 

Answering a correspondent’s question on why the Millennium Development Goal on water was such a difficult one to tackle, Ms. Leitner said the world population was still growing.  Something that used to be an abundant resource was abundant no more, the more so since the world population was moving into areas that until now had few settlements, such as into the semi-arid north China plain, which still used traditional water technologies.  Because of increased industrialization, there was also more pollution of water resources.

Asked about hoped-for results, Mr. Bartram said he hoped the international community would realize that it needed to put financing behind the sanitation question, not through large-scale infrastructural investments, but through actions such as service extension, in which small-scale enterprises played a key role.  The role of governments in that regard would be one of facilitation and regulation.

It was not a matter of big investments, Ms. Leitner emphasized, but a matter of getting national policy frameworks and legislation right at all levels.  That did not mean subsidies should be stopped.  Incentives to entice people in investing in sanitation facilities were welcome.

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