UNICEF - East Asian leaders commit to improving toilets and hygiene

BEPPU CITY, Japan, 3 December 2007 – More than 170 delegates from 14 East Asian nations gathered last weekend in Beppu City, on the southern Japanese island of Kyushu, for the first East Asia Ministerial Conference on Sanitation and Hygiene (EASAN 2007)

Co-hosted by UNICEF, the World Bank’s Water and Sanitation Programme (WSP) and the World Health Organization, it was the highest-level gathering of its kind ever held in the region.

Ministers and policy makers from East Asia pledged to raise investment in sanitation and hygiene, especially for the poor, and in schools and health care facilities.

A week earlier, on 21 November 2007, government leaders attending the Third East Asia Summit (EAS) signed the “Singapore Declaration on Climate Change, Energy and the Environment” in which they reaffirmed their commitment to “enhance access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation and promote integrated water resource management through initiatives such as […] the International Year of Sanitation 2008”.

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