Agenda 2030 for SDG-6: Water, Sanitation and Hygiene in India

Abstract

The 2030 Agenda of the United Nations comprises 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and 169 sub-targets which serve as a global reference point for the transition to sustainability. The agenda acknowledges that different issues such as poverty, hunger, health, education, sanitation and hygiene, gender equality, environmental degradation, among others are integrated and can therefore only be addressed together. The sanitation target of the Sustainable Development Goals is that everyone should have a ‘safely-managed’ sanitation facility by 2030 and that open defecation be eliminated. It covers facilities for handwashing with soap, menstrual-hygiene management, and food hygiene, but only handwashing with soap is monitored by WHO/UNICEF. It is clearly correct therefore that sanitation is a major component of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (United Nations General Assembly 2015a), of which Target #2 of Goal #6 is to: “By 2030, achieve access to adequate and equitable sanitation and hygiene for all and end open defecation, paying special attention to the needs of women and girls and those in vulnerable situations”. Water and sanitation services are critical for public health. The purpose of this paper is to raise the importance of these services is reflected in SDG 6 and the associated targets 6.1, 6.2 and 6.3. Much progress remains to be made to achieve these targets, but it is already becoming clear that greater ambition is needed.