International Year of Sanitation

Worldwide there are roughly 2.6 billion people who do not have access to basic sanitation today.

The goal of 2008 as the International Year of Sanitation was to help raise awareness of this crisis and to accelerate progress towards reaching the UN's Millennium Development Goals (MDG's) and cutting the number of people without access to basic sanitation in half by the year 2015.

The progress towards achieving the sanitation MDG has been slow and varied in different parts of the world.

[2] The spotlight on sanitation as a major issue worldwide began in 2000 with the United Nations adoption of the Millennium Development Goals, which aim at diminishing poverty and increasing health and the general well-being of all people.

The Johannesburg Plan of Action established the objective of halving the number of people without access to basic sanitation by the year 2015.