BANGKOK — How will Japan and other countries in the world achieve the millennium development goal (MDG) target to reduce by half the proportion of 2.6 billion people who have no access to basic sanitation by 2015?
On this year's World Water Day (March 22), to put the spotlight on sanitation the United Nations General Assembly declared the year 2008 as the International Year of Sanitation. The goal is to raise awareness and to accelerate progress toward the MDG targets to halve the number of people without access to basic sanitation by 2015.
Where is the estimated $10 billion annual cost to achieve this MDG target by 2015 going to come from? From 2008-2015, we will need $80 billion to achieve this target, which will halve the number of 2.6 billion people who presently have no access to basic sanitation (and even if we achieve this MDG target it will still leave the other half (1.3 billion people) without access to basic sanitation in 2015).