News in English

13 October 2008, Global Handwashing Day, World Radio Switzerland - listen to Carolien van der Voorden here.

29 September 2008, Groups form water, sanitation alliance for $60 million mega scheme - The announcement, made at CGI's 2008 Annual Meeting, included commitments to action by an alliance, which includes the Global Water Challenge (GWC), WaterPartners, and the Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council (WSSCC). Collectively, the $60 million in commitments in which they are involved will improve the quality of life for some six million of the world's poorest people. Read the article from The Guardian Newspapers here.

18 September 2008, Global fund puts spotlight on sanitation - The Global Sanitation Fund created last March with a 100 million dollars target per year is being billed as key financing mechanism aimed at meeting one of the heigh UN Millennium Development Goals. Read the article from IPS here.

27 August 2008, Citizen writer awarded - The Citizen feature writer Salome Gregory has won the 2008 WASH Media Award in the Gender category. Read the article by the Citizen here.

21 August 2008, WSSCC takes initiative to support sanitation in the poor areas - Article from the People's Daily Online here.

21 August 2008, Life without a toilet - Watch the Reuters video here.

19 August 2008, World Water Week kicks off - Heads of state and finance ministers find the argument that improved sanitation creates economic development more convincing than the health aspect, said Jon Lane, the executive director of the international Water and Sanitation Collaborative Council. “One dollar invested in sanitation and hygiene generates on average in places like South Asia and Africa about nine dollars worth of economic benefit. A ratio of one to nine is very attractive,” he said. If millions of people did not have to fight for their survival because of disastrous sewage and drinking water problems, they could use their time and energy to work for their own development and that of their society, Lane added. Click here to read the whole story from Deutsche Welle.

18 August 2008, World Water Week focuses on sanitation - World Water Week begins this week with a special focus on the world sanitation crisis. Some of the topics to be discussed include the relationship between sanitation, economics and health, and water and climate. In the following interview, Roberto Lenton, Chair of the Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council, explained to Patrick Maigua why he believes sanitation has become a silent crisis. Click here to listen to the UN Radio (duration: 3'43").

18 August 2008 - As World Water Week opened in Stockholm on Sunday 17 August, the Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council said it plans to paint the Swedish capital from blue to brown, by emphasising a topic that hasn't gotten enough attention – the fact that 40% of the world's population lacks access to toilets.
Roberto Lenton is Chair of the Council. "It has huge impacts in terms of the loss of human dignity as a result of not having private facilities for sanitation and also loss of income from productive days." Sanitation has been called the greatest medical advance of the past 150 years, yet almost two million children under five continue to die from diarrhoea each year. This year has been declared by the United Nations as the International Year of Sanitation. Click here to listen to UN Radio (duration: 49").

7 June 2008, Suffer the environment at your cost! - On the occasion of World Environment Day, 2008, the Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council (WSSCC), has called for environmental protection through sanitation. In a statement from Geneva, WSSCC stated that 500,000 tons of faeces are openly defecated everyday to the environment around the world and that this posed serious health hazards, the organization believed that providing toilets and protecting the environment would become a winning combination. Read the article from KanglaOnline here.

6 June 2008 - Using existing proven approaches and technologies and for about 10 billion US dollars a year which is less than 1 percent of global military expenditure, the world could meet the Millennium Development Goal sanitation target. That is to halve the number of people without sustainable access to basic sanitation by 2015. This remark was made by Jon Lane, Executive Director of Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council based in Geneva on the World Environment Day. Read the whole story from the People's Daily Online here.

12 May 2008 - Sanitation Reaches the End of the Beginning (Perhaps) " ... the CSD's review of sanitation is appropriate because we live in a dysfunctional world consisting of two halves: half have good sanitation while half don't even have basic sanitation. The latter is shocking and illogical since we know that access to basic sanitation improves health, generates economic development, promotes social development and helps the environment". Please click here to read the article submitted by Jon Lane, WSSCC Executive Director, to Outreach Issues, a daily publication of SDIN (Sustainable Developm ent Issues Network) and SF (Stakeholder Forum), on page 6.

7 May 2008 - Jon Lane, WSSCC Executive Director, called the declaration of 2008 as the International Year of Sanitation by the United Nations as "a political action made to generate more interest and support for the topic and, therefore, generate more financing". He estimates that it will cost $ 10 billion per year to fill in the sanitation funding gap - to be shared by all the stakeholders, from the individual householders investing in pit toilets to sustained financing from big multinational donors. In March 2008 the WSSCC launched the Global Sanitation Fund. "Our inspiration is for $ 100 million per year" said Jon Lane, "then we can really start to make an impact". Jon Lane was among the sanitation experts and financing professionals attending the Sustainable Sanitation Alliance meeting in New York, organized by UNICEF, Ashoka and the German Technical Cooperation Agency, in order to identify sustainable methods of providing clean water and safe sanitation to those who lack these basic rights. Watch the UNICEF video here.

29 March 2008 - "There are encouraging signs that sanitation is finally being taken seriously. The Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council has just launched a Global Sanitation Fund to help meet the sanitation MDG target, helped by over $50 million worth of contributions from The Netherlands, Switzerland, Sweden and UK governments." Read the Lancet Editorial here.

18 March 2008 - "Raising awareness and... funding! The WSSCC launched the Global Sanitation Fund on March 14 in Geneva, seeking to raise funds and contribute to country-specific sanitation, water and hygiene programs in poor communities around the world". Read the article from Triplepundit - People Planet Profit here.

12 March 2008 - WSSCC is launching the Global Sanitation Fund on 14 March 2008 in Geneva. Jon Lane, WSSCC Executive Director, speaks on World Radio Switzerland, please click here to listen.