Some 1.6 million people die each year due to water and sanitation related diseases, millions of girls do not go to school because of lack of toilets, and prison detainees are denied access to adequate sanitation in some countries as a form of punishment, clear violations of the rights to health, education, and many other human rights.
Despite longstanding promises by world leaders to halve, by 2015, the number of people without basic sanitation, 2.5 billion still lack access to basic sanitation, and 1.2 billion don't have any form of sanitation at all.
Poor sanitation and hygiene costs the Lao People's Democratic Republic 193 million dollars per year, an estimated 5.6 percent of gross domestic product, according to figures from the Water and Sanitation Programme (WSP) of the World Bank.
The world's developing nations, particularly in Asia and Africa, are struggling to cope with two of the basic necessities of life: fresh water and adequate sanitation.
Activists are calling for an economic bailout plan for women and demanding that their voices be heard at the decision-making table ahead of the G20 summit of the world's biggest economies in London on Apr. 2.
The world's population is estimated to top 9 billion people by 2050, and 7 billion by early 2012, with the biggest increase in developing countries of Asia and Africa, says the U.N. population report launched on Wednesday.
Ruby Dhalla, a Liberal member of Canada's Parliament, is also a community activist, doctor, and one of the leading progressive voices in North American politics today.
After being blind for years to the needs and rights of women, the United Nations is finally well on its way to create a "fully-resourced" women's agency, says Stephen Lewis, the former U.N. Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa.
As people around the world celebrate their loved ones on Valentine's Day weekend, activists are working to ensure that the ongoing horrors of the conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) are not forgotten.
After the recent turmoil in Gaza, ongoing mass killings in Darfur, and the failure to timely intervene to aid survivors of last year's Cyclone Nargis in Burma, civil society groups are calling on U.N. member states to fully commit to the so-called "Responsibility to Protect" (R2P) concept.