Despite a great deal of progress in the last 15 years to bring clean water to more people than ever before, when it comes to sanitation, there is still a very long way to go.

As we celebrate World Toilet Day on November 19, it is sobering to realise that 4.5 billion people - that's six out of 10 people in the world today - lack safely managed sanitation, especially in rural areas, according to WHO and UNICEF. 

What do we mean by 'safely managed' sanitation? We mean about toilets where human waste – poo – is safely disposed of; i.e. kept away from contact with us or our drinking water.

WHO and UNICEF together run the Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP), which assesses the world's progress on water, sanitation and hygiene. Its recent report, Progress on drinking water, sanitation and hygiene: 2017 update and Sustainable Development Goal baselines, says that of the 4.5 billion people who do not have safely managed sanitation, 2.3 billion still do not even have basic sanitation services.

This includes 600 million people who share a toilet or latrine with other households, and 892 million people – mostly in rural areas – who defecate in the open. As a result 361,000 children under the age of five die every year due to diarrhoea. Poor sanitation and contaminated water are also linked to transmission of diseases such as cholera, dysentery, hepatitis A and typhoid.

Faith in Water will be celebrating Global Handwashing Day on October 15, the international advocacy day dedicated to increasing awareness about the importance of handwashing with soap to prevent disease. 

​This year's theme is ‘Our Hands, Our Future’, reminding us that handwashing protects our own health, but also allows us to build our own futures, as well as those of our communities, and the world. It is such a simple thing to do but it is incredibly powerful.

• Handwashing with soap could prevent many of the 272 million yearly schooldays lost to diarrhoeal disease and 50% of the infections acquired in healthcare settings.
  
• Handwashing with soap has the power to improve access to education for children, protect the health of patients and communities, and reduce inequities.
  
• It also has an important role in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals—contributing to zero hunger, good health, quality education, reduced inequalities, and more. 

For more information, visit globalhandwashing.org.

 
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We will not achieve the SDGs – including clean water and safe sanitation for all – if we don’t find 'better and more effective ways to harness the substantial contributions of faith-based organisations’. 

That was the message from Adam Russell Taylor, the World Bank’s Faith Initiative Lead, at this year’s Stockholm World Water Week. Speaking at the Water and Faith: Building Partnerships to achieve the SDGs session, he pointed out that the SDG goals were not politically binding. Achieving them would ‘require a revolution in social and political will’ – and this would require reaching out to all groups, including religious communities, he said.
 
The World Bank had already come to this conclusion: ‘We have moved from a question of ‘should we engage with the world of religion?’ to ‘how do we engage?’, and that shift is a profound one, not only throughout the World Bank but beyond, to other UN institutions, the US government, the German government and others.’
 
His views were echoed by the other panel speakers in the Water and Faith session, which was convened by the Global Water Partnership, Stockholm International Water Institute, Swedish Institute Alexandria, Church of Sweden and World Council of Churches.
 
François Brikké, Senior Network Officer with the Global Water Partnership’s Global Secretariat, said; ‘We need faith groups because of their proximity [to communities] and ability to help us go the extra mile. Water is a converging point between different faiths so it is also a convenor of dialogue and of peace between different communities.’
 
Dinesh Suna, Coordinator of the World Council of Churches’ Ecumenical Water Network, said poor faith literacy among donor and secular organisations had historically led to suspicion of working with faith groups. However, faith-based organisations were uniquely positioned to provide a critical link between humanitarian agencies and the world’s poor.
 
‘Faith-based organisations can increase programme effectiveness, address fragmentation of humanitarian programming, and build relationships and trust that will endure past the intervention or crisis,’ he said.
 
Adam Russell Taylor suggested that faith communities had five distinctive contributions to offer to end extreme poverty and secure water and sanitation for all:

• Moral imagination – ‘With over 80% of the world’s population identifying with a religious tradition, we know that religious leaders and organizations have significant influence in raising awareness, shaping worldview and shaping social norms.’
• Moral persuasion/influence – ‘Faith-based organizations are perfectly positioned to prioritise WASH because they run health clinics, hospitals, and schools all over the world.’
• Moral Clarity – Quoting from Pope Francis’s encyclical Laudato Si – ‘the poor and the earth are crying out’, he said faith groups had a particular concern for the weak and vulnerable, and also for stewardship of the Earth.
• Moral authority – Faith groups could play a critical role of advocacy, ‘from social accountability at the most local level to national policymaking and corporate practice and behaviour’.  This was particularly important given the estimate that achieving SDG 6 (access to safely managed water and sanitation services) by 2030 will require spending US$150 billion per year. 
• Moral Urgency – ‘A water secure world for all is not just an aspiration, it’s a moral imperative.’

We need a 'people first' approach – especially for the world's poorest communities – if we are to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

That was the message from Catholic Sisters to a meeting of the United Nations, governments, advocacy groups and others to assess how the world is doing in reaching the 17 SDGs, which set out to end poverty and hunger, deliver action on climate change, and end gender inequality. 

In written testimony to the meeting, the Congregation of Our Lady of Charity of the Good Shepherd, which has ministries in 74 countries, said those at the grassroots are experiencing "multi-dimensional poverty — 'lingering deprivations,' gender inequality and effects of climate change". It said empowering those living in poverty to become actors "at the center of their own development" was vital.

Read more at Global Sisters Report, an initiative of National Catholic Reporter.

We're celebrating International Menstrual Hygiene Day on May 28 (#mhd2017) which is a time to focus on the difficulties faced by adolescent girls in poor countries when their periods start.

This year's theme is 'Education on menstruation changes everything', highlighting the fact that all too often periods are a taboo subject in many cultures, shrouded in secrecy and silence. For example, in India, only 1 out of 2 girls know about menstruation before their first period, and in Tanzania and Ethiopia, only 1 out of 4 girls know about it. 

This situation means that even though menstruation is a normal biological process, it's easy for taboos and misunderstanding to proliferate, causing girls even more misery. That's certainly what we found when we talked to girls in faith schools in Uganda in 2016. Read about our Uganda workshops here. 

Here are some links to useful resources:

• Menstrual Hygiene Day is a global platform that brings together non-profits, government agencies, the private sector, the media and individuals to promote menstrual hygiene management (MHM).
• 'Why a monthly period is especially hard for millions of girls and women around the world' – an article on the difficulties faced by girls and women fleeing conflict and living in refugee camps and settlements.
• Menstrual hygiene day quiz: This short, fun quiz has been developed by IRC: test your knowledge!
• Menstrual Hygiene Matters, developed by WaterAid, is an essential resource for anyone working to improve menstrual hygiene for women and girls in lower and middle-income countries. 
• The WinS4Girls E-Course is aimed at strengthening the capacity of WASH practitioners and policymakers in this field. It was designed by Emory University and UNICEF as part of the 14-country UNICEF project funded by the Government of Canada.

The Guardian newspaper has a very interesting about how Paraguay became the only country to achieve the Millennium Development Goal water goal for rural populations.

The MDG target was to halve the proportion of the population without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation by 2015. Paraguay not only achieved it but exceeded it, with more than 94% of its rural population now having access to safe water, compared with 51.6% in 2000, more than any other country.

One of the main reasons Paraguay succeeded where so many have failed is because its politicians asked the right questions from the start and they took a long-term view. According to the article, 'from the beginning, the key to Paraguay’s approach was the focus on sustainability'. The World Bank's Maria Angelica] Sotomayor said: “They gave it a lot of attention, thinking about how you can construct a system but who will operate it and how will you manage it? Who is responsible in a rural area if a hand pump breaks? They were asking the right questions.” 

Paraguay also placed its sanitation and water agency within the Department of Health, helping ensure the issue as a public health matter. In 2007, Paraguay also recognised in law access to sufficient and quality water as a human right, three years before the right to water and sanitation was recognised by the UN

Tomorrow, on March 22 – World Water Day 2017, Pope Francis is taking part in a Vatican event aimed at inspiring a global conversation on how the world values and understands its single most precious resource: water.

The Pope will make a live address from the Vatican tomorrow morning in which he will call for action on water. Afterwards 400 thought leaders from around the world will convene at WATERSHED to begin an unprecedented dialogue around the value and values of water.

The conference is co-hosted by the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Culture and the Club of Rome. Other partners include Circle of Blue, with input from the World Economic Forum Global Future Council on the Environment. To find out more, click here for the programme.

Last month, the Pope met participants in a conference on the human right to water, organised by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. He told participants that questions concerning the right to water were not marginal, but basic and pressing.  Basic, because where there is water there is life, and pressing, because our common home needs to be protected.

An important new report has highlighted how humanitarian agencies are failing women refugees, particularly Syrian women, by ignoring their faith, cultural and gender needs.

The report, entitled More than Half (a reference to the fact that 52.8% of refugees, internally displaced people and those seeking asylum are female), was launched yesterday by our partner Global One.

It is the result of in-depth interviews with nearly 1,000 Syrian women refugees in Lebanon, carried out by a consortium of partners led by Global One, said Dr Husna Ahmad, CEO of Global One.

The report found that women and girls are particularly affected by lack of access to water and sanitation. As the main care givers, women often compromised their own hygiene needs to ensure their children had enough water. Lack of lights or locks on the communal toilet doors in refugee camps put women and girls at risk of harassment or rape.

The report said humanitarian organisations caring for refugees routinely fail to take into account the specific needs of women and girls such as their menstrual cycle. For example, 70% of the women questioned had no access to underwear and 73% sometimes or never had access to menstrual products.

Equally important, humanitarian agencies also failed to appreciate refugees' faith needs. "Humanitarian efforts are failing to address women as women but also as Muslim women," said Terri Harris of Global One. "So much has been taken from them by this conflict, we must not rob them of their identity."

Speaking at the launch, Helen Stawski of Islamic Relief said: "Faith provides people with resilience, with hope. Faith is a psychological buffer and a social network. It helps people form relationships, it is integral to people's resilience and dignity."

Faith in Water is excited to be taking part in JustWater 2017, an initiative launched by cathedrals and churches on four continents to raise awareness and activism about water.

They include St George's Cathedral in Cape Town, South Africa; St Paul's Cathedral in London, UK; St Paul's Cathedral in Melbourne, Australia; and Trinity Church Wall Street in New York, USA.

The JustWater programme aims to draw attention to the issues around water – whether these challenges are flooding, drought, rising tides or access to fresh water and sanitation. Major events are scheduled to coincide with the season of Lent and around UN World Water Day on 22 March to support social justice efforts on water.

Faith in Water is taking part in Water of Life? Creation, Culture and the River Thames on March 23 in St Paul’s Cathedral, London. This large public event is the flagship event for the JustWater programme in the UK and will host a wide range of performances, speakers and organisations.

The Very Revd David Ison, Dean of St Paul's Cathedral London, said 'How we deal with water shows how much we value one another. The church working around the world in partnership, to share resources and raise awareness of water-related issues, is a sign of how humanity can achieve together for the benefit of all what we cannot do on our own.'

The JustWater2017.org website is an open resource to help equip community and church leaders as advocates for water justice. Events and outcomes from the project will be highlighted on the website as well as on social media using the hashtag #justwater17.

The president made it a priority in his election campaign and now the First Lady has presided over the launch of a nationwide initiative calling on all the citizens to get involved. One of the country's leading singers, Sana Bob, has even composed a song about it.

​The country is Burkina Faso and the campaign focuses on sanitation. The aim is to mobilise the entire country to put an end to open defecation and give everyone access to decent sanitation facilities.

Around 9.3 million people still defecate in the open on a daily basis and 70% of hospital beds are taken by people suffering from illnesses caused by a lack of sanitation. Every day 4.8 million women risk their safety, dignity and health because they are forced to hide in the bush to relieve themselves.

The people's campaign for toilets, Fasotoilettes 2017, has been initiated by IRC Burkina Faso in collaboration with the General Directorate for Sanitation of the Ministry for Water and Sanitation, the NGOs WaterAid and Eau Vive International and the Foundation Kim. 

First lady Sika Kabore launched the campaign, saying, 'Relieving oneself is a basic need of all human beings… I am deeply disturbed when I think of all the women who have to wait until nightfall to do what is ultimately natural.'

​For more information on Burkino Faso's national campaign, visit Sanitation Updates.