The scale of the sanitation crisis is profound. The UN estimates that 2.5 billion people, 40 per cent of the world's population, lack access to adequate sanitation. The global toll in human development terms is shocking: pervasive associated disease and death, chronic and inescapable poverty and the paths of opportunity through education and productive labour blocked.
A failure by governments to respond comprehensively to the sanitation crisis is undermining development efforts. The
decision taken in Johannesburg in 2002 to set an international target for sanitation, to "halve the proportion of people living without access to basic sanitation by 2015," under the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) framework, has
failed to mobilise the requisite political will among international or national level actors.
Of all the MDG targets, the sanitation target remains one of the most off-track. At current rates of progress it will be missed globally by half a decade. In sub-Saharan Africa the MDG target will not be met until 2076. This lack of progress against the MDG target is a critical indicator of the widespread neglect of sanitation services by both national
governments and donors.