Two years ago, South Africa had its worst ever outbreak of cholera, in the Kwazulu-Natal province. The disease was spreading because supplies of clean water were being contaminated with sewage inside the villages.
鈥淲e were horrified,鈥� says Ronnie Kasrils, the ex-Communist and ANC intelligence chief who is now the country鈥檚 water minister. 鈥淲e asked why it happened, when we provide them with clean water. We realised that we were neglecting sanitation.鈥� Kasrils鈥檚 response was a 10-year programme to install more than a million latrines throughout South Africa鈥檚 rural areas. Getting clean water to people is meaningless, he discovered, unless you also give them toilets.
And in the end, the summit agreed. Worldwide 2.4 billion people lack basic sanitation. After late-night discussions between ministers, US delegation yielded to pressure from other countries to agree a formal target to halve that number by 2015. Meeting the target will require improving the toilet arrangements for about 250,000 people a day for the next 12 years. That鈥檚 triple the rate at which people are currently being connected.
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But, as with water supplies, the summit agreement provides no steer on how the target should be met. This raises the prospect of clashes between advocates of grand sewer projects and those who want smaller and cheaper programmes, such as the Sulabh Sanitation Movement which has installed over a million household latrines in India.
