Six of the world’s seven billion people have mobile phones… but only 4.5billion have a toilet says UN report
Worldwide, Daily news | ankakh | March 24, 2013 7:59
Six of the world’s seven billion people have mobile phones – but only 4.5 billion have a toilet, according to a U.N. report.
The shocking statistic has prompted the international organisation to launch a global campaign to improve sanitation for the 2.5 billion people whose health is at risk.
U.N. Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson called their plight ‘a silent disaster’ that reflects the extreme poverty and huge inequalities in the world today.
Eliasson told a press conference that the issue must be addressed immediately for the world to meet the U.N. goal of halving the proportion of people without access to sanitation by the end of 2015.
The U.N. said action must include eliminating by 2025 the practice of open defecation, which perpetuates disease.
It is one of the main causes of diarrhea, which results in the death of more than 750,000 children under the age of five every year, the U.N. said.
According to a U.N. official, the countries are Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Cambodia, Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, Nepal, Nigeria, Pakistan, Sierra Leone, Zambia, Afghanistan, Burkina Faso, Chad, Congo, Niger, Sudan and South Sudan.
India alone accounts for 60 per cent of the number of people who practice open defecation.
There are now close to 1billion phones in India – a meteoric rise from just 45million in 2002.
Despite the lack of sanitation, most people are able to afford a mobile phone with a wide range available for £10 or less and the price of calls reducing from 10p a minute to 2p a minute in the last decade.
The global economic gains from investing in sanitation and clean water are estimated at £170 billion per year, the U.N. said.
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