Better sanitation systems

Pakistan seems to find itself at bottom when it comes to a whole gamut of community health issues

Pakistan seems to find itself nearly at the bottom of the pile when it comes to a whole gamut of community health issues. If anything, our record in terms of access to basic sanitation seems to be slipping further. Pakistan is currently ranked the seventh-worst country, sinking down three places from last year. Despite our discomfiture, the authorities concerned at the federal and provincial levels have done nothing to stop this slide. The figures say it all. Up to 42 per cent of the country’s population remains without access to basic sanitation. Sanitation charity WaterAid estimates that 79 million people lack access to a decent toilet, while 37pc have no system for wastewater disposal at all. On a global scale, hundreds of millions of people around the world are affected by public sanitation.

Lack of proper sanitation exposes large segments of the population to highly contagious diseases and undermines public health in unimaginable ways. It is time that the authorities in all four provinces and other regions woke up from their slumber and diverted a whole lot more attention to the issue. The severity of the crisis demands an immediate shift of focus.

Experts don’t expect any improvement in the situation until the government takes ownership of the sanitation problems and maximises its efforts to address these as a priority. The key, at this point, is to improve funding and allocate additional resources to tackle sanitation and wastewater problems. Such an effort is crucial to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals for sanitation and wastewater management. The objective of these goals is to ensure that most individuals and households have access to a safely-managed, household toilet by the year 2030. Most of all Pakistan needs to devise systems to ensure that human waste is contained, transported, treated and disposed of in a safe and sustainable way. It’s not impossible.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 24^th, 2017.

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