1. 1/25/2016 Not just another day | WSSCC partner zone | The Guardian
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Not just another day
Global Handwashing Day is there to remind us of how simple the solutions to serious issues can be
Tim Kellow
I’ve always been a sceptic when it comes to world “Days”. However noble the cause, what
difference can they really make? The International Day of Peace – as if the various factions in
Syria or Nigeria’s Boko Haram extremists paused from their daily destruction to consider
alternative approaches. How many acres of forest are cleared for extracting resources or
planting cash-crops every World Environment Day? Aside from providing a hook for advocacy
press releases, how could those involved possibly think that one day could positively affect
the suffering on the front lines of poverty and insecurity? Well, having run behaviour change
projects in West Africa over the last five years I am beginning to believe that it can.
Today is Global Handwashing Day, and together with its cousin World Toilet Day on 19
November, it brings attention to the most basic issues – hygiene and sanitation – that to our
shame still account for two million child deaths a year.
A third of the world’s population – 2.4 billion people – live with poor sanitation and hygiene
which, according to the World Bank, costs countries $260 billion annually. Every day 2,000
children die before reaching their fifth birthday due to diarrhoeal diseases, the vast majority
caused by poor sanitation and hygiene.
Diarrhoea alone killed far more young children in Nigeria over the last 12 months – around
150,000 – than Boko Haram’s slaughtering and the wars in Syria combined. Whilst we
continue the daily search for even a hint of a resolution to these two brutal and complex
conflicts, we already know the simple solution to tackling hygiene and sanitation-related
diseases.
We know that handwashing with soap is the most effective and inexpensive way to prevent
diarrhoeal diseases – reducing incidence by up to 47% – and combined with improved
sanitation, this is boosted to 68%. We know that in countries with the highest child mortality
rates as few as 1% of people wash their hands effectively, and that the global average is only
19%. Most frustratingly, effective tools and participatory methods are readily available and it
is estimated that interventions that promote handwashing could save close to a million lives.
So why is hygiene promotion not a focus of most development projects?
The relative lack of attention in both development and media circles is why we need days
such as Global Handwashing and World Toilet Day to remind us of how simple the solutions to
serious issues can be. They can also be used creatively to launch an outreach campaign or to
celebrate behaviour change achievements.
In Nigeria, Concern Universal’s month-long Global Handwashing Day campaign brings
together famous musicians, local leaders, and a soap company to empower thousands of
school children as hygiene promoters in communities already committed to improving

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sanitation. We are using World Toilet Day to hold simultaneous celebrations in 400
communities that have ended open defecation and to encourage their neighbours to join the
movement! These complement a broader initiative funded by the Global Sanitation Fund – the
only global fund solely dedicated to sanitation and hygiene.
So the next time you dismiss a seemingly naïve or delusional “Day”, bear in mind those who
are celebrating the start or realisation of a commitment to transform their own lives in a much
more tangible way than giving up smoking; and spare a thought as to why we still need to
draw attention to such basic needs and rights as hygiene and sanitation to ensure that they
are specified targets in the new set of global indicators and goals.
Instead, why not join us in celebrating the Global Handwashing Day and when you hear
someone recounting the latest casualty figures from the interminable and brutal conflicts
making the news, remind them of the scale of killing perpetrated by germs that terrorise
children and the of simple solution that is already in our reach.
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