The Sanitation and Hygiene Fund, formerly Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council of the UN, will be officially launched Nov. 17 to mobilize a $2-billion fund in five years to provide modern solutions to water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) crisis now a global scourge.
Currently, more than four billion people globally do not have access to safely managed sanitation services while three billion lack access to basic handwashing facilities, and nearly 10 percent of the world’s population still practice open defecation.
All these result in many of the world’s most serious diseases, and leading causes of child mortality. The outbreak of covid-19 has worsened the problem for the vulnerable who can’t afford social standing and hand washing.
However, there has been little investment in this sector for many years, thus delaying progress in reaching the Sustainable Development Goals.
Investing the necessary funding, the Sanitation and Hygiene Fund will bring about change as it finances programmes that produce large-scale and measurable results and deliver a fundamental social and human right to millions robbed of their dignity.
To make a case for such global investment in sanitation and hygiene, Ms Amina J. Mohammed, Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations, will be speaking at the virtual launch on Tuesday.
Other speakers include Nigeria’s Vice President Yemi Osinbajo; Ms Henrietta Fore, UNICEF Executive Director; Ms Grete Faremo, Executive Director of the United Nations Office for Project Services; Mr Gilbert Houngbo, Chair of UN-Water and President of the International Fund for Agricultural Development; Dr Zsuzsanna Jakab, Deputy Director-General of the World Health Organization; and Dominic O’Neill, Executive Director of the Sanitation and Hygiene Fund.