On 21 June 2011, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon officially launched the “Sustainable Sanitation: Five-Year Drive to 2015 (5YD)”, a push to speed up progress on the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) target of improving global sanitation by 2015.
Published on: 29/06/2011
On 21 June 2011, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon officially launched the “Sustainable Sanitation: Five-Year Drive to 2015 (5YD)”, a push to speed up progress on the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) target of improving global sanitation by 2015. The launch took place at UN Headquarters in New York in the presence of UNICEF Executive Director Anthony Lake, Ugandan Minister of Water and Environment the Hon. Maria Mutagamba, and His Royal Highness the Prince of Orange who chairs the Secretary-General’s Advisory Board on Water and Sanitation (UNSGAB).
With 2.6 billion people still without access to improved sanitation and over 1.1 billion people practising open defecation, the MDG target is lagging far behind. On 20 December 2010 the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution calling upon the UN Member States to "redouble efforts to close the sanitation gap". The Drive to 2015 has been endorsed at several high-level meetings, most recently by the Fourth South Asian Conference on Sanitation (SACOSAN-IV).
The Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council (WSSCC) is helping to develop the 5YD advocacy strategy and materials in collaboration with UNSGAB, UNICEF and the other partners supporting the initiative.
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Related web site: www.sanitationdrive2015.org
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Source: UN / 5YD, 21 Jun 2011
