The Director, Metro Public Health Department of the Accra Metropolitan Assembly, Florence S. Kuukyi, has said that there will be no sustainable future without standard toilet facilities in every home.

She stated that about 43% of Ghana’s population are still without standard toilet facilities, and Ghana ranks 2^nd among countries practicing open defecation. This, according to her, is a blight on the population considering that “toilet is dignity and water is life.”

Madam Kuukyi said toilets drive improvement in gender equality, education, economics and the environment.

As such, “there is the need for government to see toilet as a human right and stiffer measures should be put in place to close the gap.”

She made these comments in a press statement to mark the celebration of World Toilet Day which is marked annually on the 19^th of November 2021.

This year’s World Toilet Day is themed “Valuing Toilet,” and is pursuant to raising awareness of the need for a toilet for every human living everywhere in the world, according to the UN.

“Life without toilet is dirty, dangerous, and undignified. Public health depends much on the presence of toilets,” she said.

“Sanitation is a human right recognized by the United Nations, we urgently need massive investment and innovation to quadruple progress all along the ‘sanitation chain’, from toilets to the transport, collection, and treatment of human waste,” she added.

Madam Florence Kuukyi has thus called on the government to “listen to the people who are being left behind without access to toilets and allocate specific funding to include them in planning and decision-making processes.”