A New Plan Will Bring Toilets to 250 Million People Who Need Them
UNICEF is teaming up with the sanitation company LIXIL to get safe, affordable toilets installed in rural communities across Ethiopia, Kenya, and Tanzania to improve health and education outcomes.
Originally published on Fast Company
As things currently stand, progress on the Sustainable Development Goals—17 benchmarks, ranging from reducing inequality to achieving zero hunger—is uninspiring. Most countries have made few, if any, substantial improvements across the categories.
A new partnership between UNICEF and LIXIL, one of the largest home and water product suppliers in the world, aims to jumpstart progress on one of the goals: SDG 6, which mandates improved access to clean water and sanitation for all. Around 2.3 billion people in the world currently don’t have access to a clean, safe toilet. By 2021, LIXIL and UNICEF want to help lower that number by 250 million to supplement progress on SDG 6. “There aren’t any impossibilities or any lack of technology posing a barrier to access,” says Jin Montesano, chief public affairs officer for LIXIL. “But it is a very complex issue that requires more focus on solutions and partners coming together to accelerate progress on the goal.”
