Q&A: "Sanitation is a political orphin"

Title :

Q&A: "Sanitation Is a Political Orphan"

Interview with Andrew Hudson, of the UNDP Water Governance Programme

Author :

IPS Inter Press Service correspondent Rajiv Fernando

Type :

Interview

Date :

December 5, 2007

URL :

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=40352

Description :

Some 1.5 million children die every year due to inadequate water, sanitation and hygiene, while more than a third of the world's population does not have access to basic toilet facilities.

Still, sanitation is one of the least publicised of the eight poverty-focused Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), and a variety of associations and U.N. agencies have stepped up to reduce these numbers at least by half by the MDG deadline of 2015.

IPS correspondent Rajiv Fernando interviewed Andrew Hudson, an expert from the U.N. Development Programme. Excerpts of the interview follow.