World Toilet Day (WTD) is an official

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be a centre for harmoni ...

international observance day on 19 November to inspire action to tackle the global

sanitation Sanitation refers to public health conditions related to clean drinking water and treatment and disposal of human excreta and sewage. Preventing human contact with feces is part of sanitation, as is hand washing with soap. Sanitation syste ...

crisis. Worldwide, 4.2 billion people live without "

safely managed sanitation Sanitation refers to public health conditions related to clean drinking water and treatment and disposal of human excreta and sewage. Preventing human contact with feces is part of sanitation, as is hand washing with soap. Sanitation sys ...

" and around 673 million people practice open defecation.WHO and UNICEF (2019
Progress on household drinking water, sanitation and hygiene 2000–2017: Special focus on inequalities
, Geneva, Switzerland Sustainable Development Goal 6 aims to "Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all". In particular, target 6.2 is to "End open defecation and provide access to sanitation and hygiene". When the Sustainable Development Goals Report 2020 was published,

United Nations Secretary-General The secretary-general of the United Nations (UNSG or SG) is the chief administrative officer of the United Nations and head of the United Nations Secretariat, one of the six principal organs of the United Nations. The role of the secretary- ...

António Guterres António Manuel de Oliveira Guterres ( , ; born 30 April 1949) is a Portuguese politician and diplomat. Since 2017, he has served as secretary-general of the United Nations, the ninth person to hold this title. A member of the Portuguese Soci ...

said, "Today, Sustainable Development Goal 6 is badly off track" and it "is hindering progress on the 2030 Agenda, the realization of human rights and the achievement of peace and security around the world". World Toilet Day exists to inform, engage and inspire people to take action toward achieving this goal. The

UN General Assembly The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA or GA; french: link=no, Assemblée générale, AG) is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN), serving as the main deliberative, policymaking, and representative organ of the UN. Curr ...

declared World Toilet Day an official UN day in 2013, after Singapore had tabled the resolution (its first resolution before the UN's General Assembly of 193 member states). Prior to that, World Toilet Day had been established unofficially by the World Toilet Organization (a Singapore-based NGO) in 2001. UN-Water is the official convener of World Toilet Day. UN-Water maintains the official World Toilet Day website and chooses a special theme for each year. In 2020 the theme was "

Sustainable sanitation Sustainable sanitation is a sanitation system designed to meet certain criteria and to work well over the long-term. Sustainable sanitation systems consider the entire "sanitation value chain", from the experience of the user, excreta and wast ...

and

climate change In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to ...

". In 2019 the theme was 'Leaving no one behind', which is the central theme of the

Sustainable Development Goals The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) or Global Goals are a collection of 17 interlinked objectives designed to serve as a "shared blueprint for peace and prosperity for people and the planet, now and into the future".United Nations (2017) R ...

. Themes in previous years include nature-based solutions, wastewater, toilets and jobs, and toilets and

nutrition Nutrition is the biochemical and physiological process by which an organism uses food to support its life. It provides organisms with nutrients, which can be metabolized to create energy and chemical structures. Failure to obtain sufficient ...

. World Toilet Day is marked by communications campaigns and other activities. Events are planned by UN entities, international organizations, local civil society organizations and volunteers to raise awareness and inspire action. Toilets are important because access to a safe functioning toilet has a positive impact on

public health Public health is "the science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life and promoting health through the organized efforts and informed choices of society, organizations, public and private, communities and individuals". Analyzing the det ...

, human dignity, and personal safety, especially for females. Sanitation systems that do not safely treat excreta (feces) allow the spread of disease. Serious soil-transmitted diseases and waterborne diseases such as

cholera Cholera is an infection of the small intestine by some strains of the bacterium '' Vibrio cholerae''. Symptoms may range from none, to mild, to severe. The classic symptom is large amounts of watery diarrhea that lasts a few days. Vomiting an ...

diarrhea Diarrhea, also spelled diarrhoea, is the condition of having at least three loose, liquid, or watery bowel movements each day. It often lasts for a few days and can result in dehydration due to fluid loss. Signs of dehydration often begin w ...

, typhoid,

dysentery Dysentery (UK pronunciation: , US: ), historically known as the bloody flux, is a type of gastroenteritis that results in bloody diarrhea. Other symptoms may include fever, abdominal pain, and a feeling of incomplete defecation. Complications ...

and

schistosomiasis Schistosomiasis, also known as snail fever, bilharzia, and Katayama fever, is a disease caused by parasitic flatworms called schistosomes. The urinary tract or the intestines may be infected. Symptoms include abdominal pain, diarrhea, blo ...

can result.

Convener

World Toilet Day celebrations in Senegal 2014

World Toilet Day celebrations in Pakistan 2015

In 2013, UN-Water and the "Thematic Priority Area (TPA) on Drinking Water and Basic Sanitation" received the mandate to oversee World Toilet Day each year. This mandate is described in the United Nations Resolution A/67/L.75. In consultation with the UN-Water World Toilet Day Task Force, made up of UN-Water member organizations, UN-Water selects the theme based on that year's

World Water Development Report The United Nations World Water Development Report (WWDR) is a global report that provides an authoritative, comprehensive assessment of the world’s freshwater resources. It is produced annually by the World Water Assessment Programme and release ...

and develops content for World Toilet Day communications campaigns. UN-Water manages the World Toilet Day website which promotes key issues and stories, provides communications and campaigns resources, and announces events and opportunities to participate. The overall World Toilet Day campaign mobilizes civil society, think tanks, non-governmental organizations, academics, corporations and the general public to participate in the associated social media and communications campaigns. Ultimately, the aim is to encourage organizations and governments to plan activities and action on

issues to make progress on Sustainable Development Goal 6.

Annual themes

World Toilet Day celebrations in Singapore 2016

Starting in 2012, World Toilet Day themes were selected for each year and form the basis of the related communications campaigns. Since 2016, the same overall annual theme has been used for both World Toilet Day and World Water Day, based on the

. * 2012 – "I give a shit, do you?" (slogan) * 2013 – Tourism and water * 2014 – Equality and

dignity Dignity is the right of a person to be valued and respected for their own sake, and to be treated ethically. It is of significance in morality, ethics, law and politics as an extension of the Enlightenment-era concepts of inherent, inaliena ...

* 2015 – Toilets and

* 2016 – Toilets and jobsUN-Water (2016
World Water Development Report 2016: Water and jobs
, Geneva, Switzerland * 2017 – Wastewater *2018 – Nature-based solutions (slogan: "When Nature calls") * 2019 – Leaving no one behind – The campaign draws attention to those people being "left behind without sanitation and the social, economic and environmental consequences of inaction". This is closely related to Sustainable Development Goal 6 which has a target to eliminate open defecation and ensure "everyone has access to sustainable sanitation services by 2030, paying special attention to the needs of women and girls and those in vulnerable situations". * 2020 –

and

* 2021 – Valuing toilets – The WTO and

Bill Gates William Henry Gates III (born October 28, 1955) is an American business magnate and philanthropist. He is a co-founder of Microsoft, along with his late childhood friend Paul Allen. During his career at Microsoft, Gates held the positions ...

both believe that if value can be given to toilet waste, then funds will be generated to pay for any cleanup including profits for entrepreneurs interested in investing in related industries. * 2022 –

Groundwater Groundwater is the water present beneath Earth's surface in rock and Pore space in soil, soil pore spaces and in the fractures of stratum, rock formations. About 30 percent of all readily available freshwater in the world is groundwater. A unit ...

and sanitation – making the invisible visible.

Examples of activities and events

Launch of reports

Some organizations launch toilet-related (or sanitation-related) reports on World Toilet Day. For example: * The Toilet Board Coalition (2017) "Sanitation Economy" * Water and Sanitation for the Urban Poor (WSUP) (2017) "Guide to strengthening the enabling environment for faecal sludge management" * The

International Labour Office The International Labour Organization (ILO) is a United Nations agency whose mandate is to advance social and economic justice by setting international labour standards. Founded in October 1919 under the League of Nations, it is the first and o ...

(ILO) (2016) "WASH@Work: self-training handbook * WHO, UNICEF and

USAID The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is an independent agency of the U.S. federal government that is primarily responsible for administering civilian foreign aid and development assistance. With a budget of over $27 bi ...

(2015) "Improving Nutrition Outcomes with Better Water, Sanitation and Hygiene: Practical Solutions for Policies and Programmes"

Events

*2019: Planned events for World Toilet Day 2019 include for example a workshop in the USA entitled "Manure Management – What Poop Can Teach Youth!", art installations in Ireland under the theme "Think Before You Flush", and a "Toilets for all Campaign in Rural areas" in Madhya Pradesh, India. *2018: Events for World Toilet Day in 2018 included diverse activities such as a ' hackathon' in Ghana to promote digital solutions, a seminar hosted by Engineers without Borders in Denmark, a screening and discussion of the

Bollywood Hindi cinema, popularly known as Bollywood and formerly as Bombay cinema, refers to the film industry based in Mumbai, engaged in production of motion pictures in Hindi language. The popular term Bollywood, is a portmanteau of "Bombay" ...

movie '' Toilet: Ek Prem Katha'' (in English – ''Toilet: A Love Story'') in Canada, and a school drawing competition in India. * 2017: Members of the Sustainable Sanitation Alliance (SuSanA) used the momentum around World Toilet Day in 2017 to update

Wikipedia Wikipedia is a multilingual free online encyclopedia written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and using a wiki-based editing system. Wikipedia is the largest and most-read refer ...

articles on WASH-related topics. This contributed to public education about the sanitation crisis. The documentary "Follow the Flush," released 19 November 2017, educated people about what happens beneath the streets of

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

after a person flushes a toilet in Manhattan. In the lead-up to World Toilet Day 2017, communities worldwide came together for sanitation-themed "Urgent Runs". More than 63 events were held in 42 countries. Events included fun runs, awareness walks, toilet cleaning programs, carnivals and even motorbike parades. Countries participating include: Bangladesh, Benin, Bhutan, Burundi, Cambodia, Cameroon, Canada, China, Congo-Brazzaville, France, Gambia, Germany, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Italy, Kenya, Mongolia, Mozambique, Namibia, Netherlands, Pakistan, Philippines, Senegal, Tanzania, United States and Vietnam.

Impacts

Social media impacts

The World Toilet Day campaign and related publications reach millions of people through

social media Social media are interactive media technologies that facilitate the creation and sharing of information, ideas, interests, and other forms of expression through virtual communities and networks. While challenges to the definition of ''social me ...

, dedicated websites and other channels. Over 100 events in 40 countries were registered on the World Toilet Day website in both 2016 and in 2017. In 2017, the hashtag #WorldToiletDay had a maximum potential reach of over 750 million people on social media. In 2018, the maximum potential reach increased by 15%,compared to 2017; the online activity and authors also increased by 12% and 22% compared to 2017, respectively.

History

2015 World Toilet Day at United Nations, New York

On 19 November 2001, the NGO World Toilet Organization (WTO) was founded by Jack Sim, a philanthropist from

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, bor ...

. He subsequently declared 19 November as World Toilet Day. The name "World Toilet Day" and not "World Sanitation Day" was chosen for ease of public messaging, even though toilets are only the first stage of sanitation systems. World Toilet Day events and public awareness campaigns increase public awareness of the broader sanitation systems that include wastewater treatment,

fecal sludge management Fecal sludge management (FSM) (or faecal sludge management in British English) is the storage, collection, transport, treatment and safe end use or disposal of fecal sludge. Together, the collection, transport, treatment and end use of fecal slud ...

municipal solid waste Municipal solid waste (MSW), commonly known as trash or garbage in the United States and rubbish in Britain, is a waste type consisting of everyday items that are discarded by the public. "Garbage" can also refer specifically to food waste ...

management, stormwater management, hygiene, and

handwashing Hand washing (or handwashing), also known as hand hygiene, is the act of cleaning one's hands with soap or handwash and water to remove viruses/ bacteria/microorganisms, dirt, grease, or other harmful and unwanted substances stuck to the hand ...

. Also, the UN

call for more than just toilets. Goal 6 calls for adequate sanitation, which includes the whole system for assuring that waste is safely processed. The WTO began pushing for global recognition for World Toilet Day and, in 2007, the Sustainable Sanitation Alliance (SuSanA) began to actively support World Toilet Day, too. Their efforts to raise attention for the sanitation crisis were bolstered in 2010 when the human right to water and sanitation was officially declared a human right by the UN. In 2013, a joint initiative between the

Government of Singapore The Government of Singapore is defined by the Constitution of Singapore to mean the executive branch of the state, which is made up of the president and the Cabinet. Although the president acts in their personal discretion in the exercis ...

and the World Toilet Organization led to Singapore's first ever UN resolution, named "Sanitation for All". The resolution calls for collective action to end the world's sanitation crisis. World Toilet Day was declared an official UN day in 2013. That resolution was adopted by 122 countries at the 67th session of the

in New York. The

(SDGs) replaced the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in 2016. On World Toilet Day on 19 November 2015, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged broad action to renew efforts to provide access to adequate sanitation for all. He reminded everyone of the "Call to Action on Sanitation" which was launched in 2013, and the aim to end open defecation by 2025. He also said: "By many accounts, sanitation is the most-missed target of the Millennium Development Goals." The UN Deputy Secretary-General, Jan Eliasson, was honored on World Toilet Day in 2016 in New York for his deep commitment to breaking the sanitation taboo. For example, he had delivered a video message to attendees of a WaterAid and

Unilever Unilever plc is a British multinational consumer goods company with headquarters in London, England. Unilever products include food, condiments, bottled water, baby food, soft drink, ice cream, instant coffee, cleaning agents, energy dri ...

joint event in the

European Parliament The European Parliament (EP) is one of the Legislature, legislative bodies of the European Union and one of its seven Institutions of the European Union, institutions. Together with the Council of the European Union (known as the Council and in ...

on World Toilet Day 2014. In 2016, UN-Water supported "A Toast for Toilets" in New York with the United Nations Mission of Singapore.

Background

Child in open sewer in Nigeria (3150664698)

Worldwide, 4.2 billion people live without "

" and around 673 million people worldwide practice open defecation. Having to urinate in the open can also be difficult for women and girls. Females tend to resort to the cover of darkness to give them more privacy, but then risk being attacked when alone at night. It has been estimated that 58% of all cases of

worldwide in 2015 were caused by unsafe water, poor sanitation and poor hygiene practices, such as inadequate

. This resulted in half a million children under the age of five dying from diarrhea per year. Providing sanitation has been estimated to lower the odds of children suffering diarrhea by 7–17%, and under-five mortality by 5–20%. The Human Right to Water and Sanitation was recognized as a human right by the United Nations (UN) General Assembly on 28 July 2010. Lack of access to

(toilets) has an impact on

, and safety. The spread of many diseases (e.g.

soil-transmitted helminthiasis Soil-transmitted helminthiasis is a type of helminth infection (helminthiasis) caused by different species of roundworms. It is caused specifically by those worms which are transmitted through soil contaminated with faecal matter and are therefo ...

) and stunted growth in children is directly related to people being exposed to

human feces Human feces (or faeces in British English) is the solid or semisolid remains of food that could not be digested or absorbed in the small intestine of humans, but has been further broken down by bacteria in the large intestine. It also contains ...

because toilets are either not available or not used. Sustainable Development Goal 6 aims to provide sanitation for all.

References

External links

World Toilet Day history on Stamps

World Toilet Day official website

World Toilet Day on United Nations website
{{Toilets Sanitation Hygiene Environmental awareness days Health awareness days November observances United Nations days Water and politics Water and society Toilets