DW: World Toilet Day draws attention to the global sanitation crisis “…According to the United Nations, 4.2 billion people live without safe sanitation and 893 million people do their business outdoors: this is a full-blown global sanitation crisis, says the U.N. Without proper facilities, diseases spread more easily and drinking…

World Bank’s “Data Blog”: Open defecation nearly halved since 2000 but is still practiced by 670 million Haruna Kashiwase, consultant at the Development Data Group’s Socio-Demographic Data team, discusses global progress toward eliminating open defecation since 2000 and presents an interactive graph detailing the reductions by region. Kashiwase notes, “Between…

U.N. News: ‘Transformational benefits’ of ending outdoor defecation: Why toilets matter “Ending the practice of defecating in the open, rather than in a toilet, will have ‘transformational benefits’ for some of the world’s most vulnerable people, says the U.N.’s partner sanitation body, the WSSCC (Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council).…

ABC: Asia is ‘doing better,’ so a review is asking why we should keep giving foreign aid (Clarke, 11/18). AFP: Renewables could cut power generation health impact by 80 percent (11/19). Devex: When global health goes local: Tackling infectious diseases and antimicrobial resistance in Kenya (11/19). Devex: Development impact bond…

UNHCR: Bringing toilets into the home boosts refugees’ health and security This story, written by Sanne Biesmans in DRC’s Mulongwe settlement, discusses the importance of toilets in refugee settlements and UNHCR’s efforts to support their construction. According to the story, “Bringing a toilet into a compound provides real benefits to…

NPR: Even Researchers Were Shocked By How Tough Life Is For Sanitation Workers “…[A] new report jointly released by the World Health Organization, the World Bank Group, and the International Labour Organization … analyzes a range of national-level studies in nine countries and interviewed 19 workers to provide what its…

The Telegraph: ‘People are dying every day’: the perilous job of sanitation workers “Sanitation workers — people whose job brings them into direct contact with human waste — are risking their lives through accident and disease because of poor workplace protection, a report has warned…” (Gulland, 11/14). U.N. News: Revealed:…

Thomson Reuters Foundation: OPINION: Coping with water scarcity requires holistic approaches Eduardo Mansur, director of the U.N. FAO’s Land and Water Division, and Olcay Unver, senior water adviser at the FAO “…In past times, when natural resources, like water, land, and soils were more plentiful and demands were fewer, a…

Nature: Avert catastrophe now in Africa’s Sahel Alisha Graves, academic coordinator and co-founder of the OASIS Initiative at the University of California, Berkeley, and colleagues “…Our analyses of population projections and the probable impacts of climate change on food security in this ecologically vulnerable zone indicate that four steps are…

Project Syndicate: The Growing Threat of Water Wars Jayati Ghosh, professor of economics at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, executive secretary of International Development Economics Associates, and member of the Independent Commission for the Reform of International Corporate Taxation “…With nearly two-thirds of fresh water coming from rivers and…