The push “Sustainable sanitation: the five-year drive to 2015” is based on a resolution of the UN General Assembly (UNGA) that called upon the UN member States to redouble "efforts to close the sanitation gap through scaled-up ground-level action, supported by strong political will, increased community participation and improved hygiene."
22 June 2011: UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, UNICEF Executive Director Anthony Lake, Ugandan Minister of Water and Environment Maria Mutagamba, and His Royal Highness the Prince of Orange launched the “Sustainable Sanitation: Five-Year Drive to 2015,” an initiative aimed to speed up progress on the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) target of halving, by 2015, the proportion of the population without sustainable access to basic sanitation.
The launch took place at UN Headquarters in New York, US, and included members of the UN Secretary-General’s Advisory Board on Water and Sanitation and other dignitaries. The MDG on sanitation is lagging behind, with 2.6 billion people, half of the population in developing regions, without access to improved sanitation. To reach it, urgent and concerted global action is needed. On 20 December 2010, the UN General Assembly (UNGA) adopted resolution A/RES/65/153 calling upon the UN member States to support the global effort to realize “Sustainable sanitation: the five-year drive to 2015” by “redoubling efforts to close the sanitation gap through scaled-up ground-level action, supported by strong political will, increased community participation and improved hygiene.”
According to the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), inadequate and dirty water, poor sanitation, and improper hygiene are the main causes of diarrhoea, which each year kills at least 1.2 million children under five. [Sustainable Sanitation: Five-Year Drive to 2015]