Every rainy season, cholera claims lives in Zambia, lives that could be saved by something as simple as a toilet. As the world marks World Toilet Day for 2025, Zambia finds itself confronting a crisis that is as familiar as it is urgent. The annual event, established by the United Nations to inspire action toward achieving Sustainable Development Goal 6 (clean water and sanitation for all by 2030), reminds us that sanitation is not merely an issue of comfort; it is about public health, human dignity and climate resilience.
This year’s theme, “Sanitation in a Changing World”, carries the tagline “We’ll Always Need the Toilet.” It highlights the unchanging importance of sanitation even as the world around us transforms under the pressures of climate change, ageing infrastructure and underinvestment. To meet the global sanitation goal, the world must move five times faster than it is doing today. That statistic alone should jolt us into action.
For Zambia, the message could not be timelier. Each rainy season brings with it the spectre of cholera outbreaks and other waterborne diseases, particularly in densely populated urban settlements where toilets are inadequate, waste management is poor, and drainage systems fail under heavy rains. The situation reflects not only infrastructural gaps but also deep-seated inequalities in access to basic services. The link between sanitation and health could not be clearer: without safe toilets and clean water, cholera will continue to resurface, undermining decades of public health progress.
Yet the sanitation challenge is no longer just about hygiene, it is also about climate change. Floods, unpredictable rainfall, and prolonged droughts are making it harder to maintain safe and sustainable sanitation systems. Floodwaters can contaminate wells and pit latrines, spreading disease, while droughts reduce the water available for hygiene. Climate variability is also compromising the durability and quality of sanitation infrastructure, particularly in resource-limited settings where systems are already fragile. In short, climate change is making it harder to keep toilets functional and safe.
As global leaders gather for COP30 in Belém, Brazil, Zambia and other developing nations must ensure that sanitation is not sidelined in climate negotiations. Sanitation and climate change are intimately linked in two directions. On one hand, poor sanitation contributes to climate change: the unsafe disposal of faecal matter produces greenhouse gases such as methane and nitrous oxide, adding to global emissions. On the other hand, climate variability: floods, rising temperatures and extreme weather, erodes the very sanitation systems needed to contain those emissions and protect human health.
Therefore, the outcomes of COP30 should include stronger recognition of sanitation as part of the climate–health–resilience agenda. Climate adaptation frameworks must support countries like Zambia to build resilient, low-emission, and future-ready toilets that can withstand floods, droughts and population pressures. These solutions are not just technical, they are moral imperatives that address both environmental integrity and human dignity.
Encouragingly, there are funding mechanisms that can help. The Green Climate Fund (GCF), the Adaptation Fund, and emerging loss and damage finance instruments offer opportunities to channel resources towards water and sanitation projects that are both climate-smart and community-driven. Zambia’s policymakers should seize these opportunities to develop proposals that integrate sanitation into climate action plans, ensuring that access to safe toilets becomes part of the broader narrative on resilience and sustainable development.
Globally, momentum is building. As of early November 2025, about 64 countries have submitted their nationally determined contributions (NDC) 3.0, the “2035-aligned” NDCs under the Paris Agreement, demonstrating growing ambition to address climate change. Zambia can follow suit by embedding sanitation and hygiene priorities within its own climate commitments, recognising that a clean toilet is also a climate solution.
World Toilet Day is a call to rethink how we approach one of humanity’s oldest and most basic needs. Toilets symbolise civilisation, dignity, and progress, but in a changing climate, they also represent resilience and adaptation. For Zambia, the path forward demands more than commemorations; it requires investment, innovation, and political will.
As the climate changes, we must redefine sanitation, not as a peripheral concern, but as a central pillar of sustainable development. Because, indeed, we’ll always need the toilet.
No comments:
Post a Comment