Even though water extraction increased by almost twice the rate of global population growth in the 20th century, UN Water highlighted that billions of people around the world still lack safe water, sanitation and handwashing facilities. According to the new UN Water SDG 6 Synthesis report 2018, an estimated 67 per cent of the West Asia and North Africa (WANA) region still lacks safely managed sanitation services, which include the unsafe disposal of human faeces in open fields, bodies of water or with solid waste. With much of the wastewater left untreated, water pollution, hygiene, health and more importantly water availability region wide is under threat.
Previous research has demonstrated that due to poor water decision making and infrastructure, water insecurity has increased, and unsustainable sanitation conditions have worsened which impact food security, livelihoods and educational opportunities. This is further exasperated by approximately 22.5 million refugees that have been globally forced to migrate and live in refugee camps or in host countries. In Jordan for example, UNRWA and UNHCR have registered 2.8 million refugees and have estimated that 622 USD are needed for water costs per refugee per year. These costs account to water supply, sanitation and indirect opportunity costs per cubic meter.
In that regard, SuSanA has launched this regional chapter in late 2017, to encourage the work on achieving sustainable sanitation and SDG 6 in the region. The chapter tends to highlight the important role sanitation has in sustainable development and aims to help push sanitation further up the sustainable development agenda in the region.
