British charity call on G-8 summit to agree to forge global sanitation plan

LONDON, April 14

A British-based charity is calling on the Group of Eight summit in Japan later this year to agree to take a global action plan meant to improve water supply and sanitation. WaterAid believes the G-8 summit in Hokkaido in July is the ”last best shot” for raising the issue — which is often overlooked by the aid community, activists say.

The charity wants the G-8 major powers to include the plan in a joint declaration by their leaders, which would see a global taskforce set up to examine progress on sanitation and look at ways of overcoming regional failures.  

(…)     One tactic the group is using is to show how dramatic increases in the standards of public health across East Asia resulted from improved sanitation. On the action plan, Northover said he preferred countries to come up with plans outlining what they need to improve sanitation rather than having specific funding targets and just pumping money into nations from the center. According to the charity, it would cost an extra $10 billion each year until 2015 to reach the Millennium Development Goal. WaterAid is keen to see an increase in budgets to address this problem but the funding needs to be properly targeted.

Kyodo News, Japan