SWA, UNICEF, World Leaders and Sanitation
The Sanitation and Water for All partnership (SWA) in collaboration with the UNICEF, would host a meeting on how to stop infectious diseases through investment in water, sanitation and hygiene, as well as through vigorous action on climate change. The meeting, which would be hosted in Jakarta, Indonesia between May 18 and May 19, 2022, would bring together government ministers of finance as well as ministers of water, sanitation, health and climate. The Chief Executive Officer of the SWA, Ms. Catarina de Albuquerque, who announced the meeting in a recent press release, warned that the world is at the risk of another devastating pandemic if governments failed to invest in water and sanitation facilities.
Albuquerque said: “Leaders and decision-makers have a choice. Our mistakes during COVID-19 have demonstrated the immense cost of inaction, but we have the wisdom to learn from them. We can invest heavily in pandemic prevention and mitigation – including ensuring that communities everywhere have access to clean water and reliable hygiene and sanitation services. Or we can ignore the catastrophic lessons learned, placing the world at grave risk for future public health threats.
“And we do not have to wait for the next pandemic to take action. There are other global health crises happening right now, responsible for the deaths of millions that can be solved by prioritizing the provision of safe water, sanitation and hygiene services.
“From cholera to coronavirus, the message for government leaders is clear: ‘if we want to get ahead of the next pandemic, we must urgently invest in water, sanitation and hygiene.’ To make any other choice could have devastating consequences.” She stated that although “COVD-19 is the deadliest viral outbreak we’ve seen in over a century, but it may not be the last in our lifetime.”
Albuquerque, who served as the first United Nation’s Special Rapporteur on the right to safe drinking water and sanitation, said that “the question of another global health crisis is not if, but when. Yet despite the imminent threat, the 2021 Global Health Security Index estimated that 195 countries remain dangerously unprepared for future pandemics. Additionally, only 33 countries have emergency preparedness and response plans in place that include considerations for vulnerable populations.
“Our collective failure to invest in preventative measures means that when diseases appear they can rage out of control, destroying lives and triggering massive health crises that take decades to resolve.